3
Here are some that come to my mind: Epazote, ramsons, nopal, chaya, sour orange, turmeric, many gingers, galangal, Sichuan pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, mamey, black sapote, guaya (Melicoccus bijugatus), jícama
Hahahahaha
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Itchy eye
(mander.xyz)
This gullfriend got an itchy eye during the photo-shoot.
Took this photo in Park Frankendael in Amsterdam a few years ago - just learned about this community and thought it would fit 😁
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[PDF] Alvarado’s Webfooted Salamander, Bolitoglossa alvaradoi: Activity, hunting behavior, and prey selection in Costa Rica
(journals.ku.edu)
A new paper on a Bolitoglossid showed up in my alerts today! 🥳
It is a one-pager and comes with a beautiful photo of a foraging arboreal salamander 😄
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Imantodes cenchoa
(mander.xyz)
Found this Imantodes cenchoa sleeping on top of a leaf in Punta Laguna, Quintana Roo.
Here is a photo of where it was sleeping:
There are a few different snakes of the genus Imantodes in Yucatán. What sets this species apart is that the row of scales on its back consists of enlarged scales. Here is a closeup emphasizing that row of scales. The green arrow points at an enlarged mid-dorsal scale, the blue arrow at a regular scale.
In comparison, here is a photo from an Imantodes tenuissimus that I took back in 2009 in Mérida, Yucatán (with a less sharp camera), and a closeup of its mid-dorsal scales that does not show this enlargement.
85
Yucatan casquehead tree frog
(mander.xyz)
One of my favorite frogs! Spent some time specifically looking for it. Managed to find two near Cobá, in Quintana Roo (in the Yucatán peninsula). This frog hides in holes in lime stone and tree trunks, and makes use of its flat head to block the entrance. This type of defense is known as phragmosis.
Some other shots:
40
Anole sleeping
(mander.xyz)
Found this anole in Yucatan. I am not sure of its exact species - probably an Anolis sp..
Anoles often sleep at the tips of leaves and twigs. My guess is that this is a strategy to prevent nocturnal predators sneaking up on them through the branches without making its bed vibrate. When woken up they can quickly drop down.
64
Leatherleaf slug
(mander.xyz)
These are quite common in Yucatan, Mexico.
The leatherleaf slugs belong to the family Veronicellidae. This particular one could be Sarasinula plebeia, but it is not so easy to definitively ID these.
I originally identified this species a few years ago from the description on this website, but since then they have added an update stating that my original source is also unsure on this one.
UPDATE: It seems that IDing certain slugs by pictures isn’t a good idea. In 2024 when pictures on this page were uploaded to iNaturalist, another user suggested a different species in the genus Leidyula, and then user “deneb16,” a mollusk specialist at UNAM, Mexico’s main university, added the comment that all Mexican species of the family this slug belongs to can’t be identified without dissecting their sexual organs. The family, she agrees, is the Leatherleaf Slug Family, the Veroncellidae.
So, I am not 100% of the species, but it is a leatherleaf slug.
15
This was near the entrance to a mangrove boat tour. Tourists and locals feed the raccoons so they are very used to humans and will even follow them to try to get food.
31
Bird poop caterpillar
(mander.xyz)
This bird poop caught my attention because it looked a bit too perfectly shaped, and when I looked at it closer its orange osmeteria came out.
Searching online, I suspect that this might be Papilio cresphontes. However, I see a lot of variation in the photos of Papilio cresphontes and so I am not sure if this the correct ID.
Found in Yucatan, Mexico.
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Possibly Eleutherodactylus planirostris
(mander.xyz)
Found many of these frogs under a wet trash bag in a back yard in Mérida, Yucatán. I made use of a handheld flash with a remote trigger for lighting, and a Sigma 105 mm as my macro lens.
These frogs do not seem to match with any of the local frogs reported in Julian C. Lee's field guide to the amphibians and reptiles of the maya world.
From a reverse image search, I mostly found images of the green house frog Eleutherodactylus planirostris. Eleutherodactylus planirostris is native to Cuba and the Bahamas, and is often introduced with plants that come from green houses in those areas. These frogs go from tadpole to frog while still inside of the egg, which explains why the baby frogs are so small.
The visual aspect, the incredibly small baby frogs, and the fact that they were found in a back yard in the city with greenhouse plants, all lead me to conclude that it is likely Eleutherodactylus planirostris.
If the timing is right, I would bring a mushroom grow bag with mushrooms sprouting.
If not... probably my radiacode gamma spectrometer and some of my radioactive items. Maybe a clock with radium painted dials and a piece of trinitite. I think that there are many different points of discussion that can be of interest to a broad audience (radioactivity, spectroscopy, electronics, US labor law story of the radium girls, nuclear explosions, background radiation.... etc). As a bonus I can bring a UV flash light and show the radium fluorescence. Adults love UV flash lights.
I think that they are referring to Paxillus involotus
It is quite an interesting mushroom. It was considered "safe to eat" for a long time, but it contains an antigen that a human's immune system can learn to attack.
The antigen is still of unknown structure but it stimulates the formation of IgG antibodies in the blood serum.
I once looked into whether this immune response builds up over many exposures, or if it is a random event that has a probability of happening for each exposure. I don't remember finding a convincing answer... If it is a random event, then mushroom could be considered a "Russian roulette" mushroom that will usually provide a nice meal, but, if unlucky, you may experience the following:
Poisoning symptoms are rapid in onset, consisting initially of vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and associated decreased blood volume. Shortly after these initial symptoms appear, hemolysis develops, resulting in reduced urine output, hemoglobin in the urine or outright absence of urine formation, and anemia. Hemolysis may lead to numerous complications including acute kidney injury, shock, acute respiratory failure, and disseminated intravascular coagulation. These complications can cause significant morbidity with fatalities having been reported.
I agree with you that this is probably unrelated to the "generally similar to humans" comment. I feel like this fantasy is a combination of the above fact mixed in with the fact that the Fungi belong to the Opisthokonts, which places them closer to animals than plants, and so they share some interesting cellular characteristics with us. This places them closer to animals than plants, but "generally similar to humans" is perhaps a bit of a stretch ^_^
But, it is just a meme about a guy being hyped about mushrooms. Hopefully people don't expect memes to be super accurate 😁
First of all, congratulations for bringing a baby girl into this world!! You must be really excited! I am very happy for you!
This looks very cool. I set up a wiki (https://ibis.mander.xyz/) and I will make an effort to populate it with some Lemmy lore and interesting science/tech 😄 Hopefully I can set some time aside and help with a tiny bit of code too.
Search engines like google aggregate data from multiple sites. I may want to download a datasheet for an electronic component, find an answer to a technical question, find a language learning course site, or look for museums in my area.
Usually I make specific searches with very specific conditions, so I tend to get few and relevant results. I think search engines have their place.
Expatriate/expat
Maybe it is not a popular opinion. And perhaps calling it "bigotry" is too far. But I work in a different country from where I was born, and I consider myself an immigrant. I have however seen this trend of referring to educated professionals as "expats" to distinguish us from people who immigrate to escape conflicts and/or poverty. I don't agree that this distinction is necessary or valuable, and I feel uncomfortable when I am described with that term. If I am called that, I usually chuckle and let people know that I'm an immigrant!!
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Password hashing occurs server-side. Even without removing the hashing step an admin can intercept the plaintext password during login. Use unique safe passwords.
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An admin can intercept the jwt authentication cookie and use any account that lives in the instance.
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Private messages are stored as plaintext in the database
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Admins can see who upvotes/downvotes what
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These are not things that are unique to Lemmy. This is common.
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To avoid having to trust your admin, run an instance.
Is there anything that only the rich can currently afford but that everyone will have in the future?
Full genome sequencing.
The price of sequencing continues to decrease as the technology evolves. I have already seen claims of under $1,000 for a full human genome. I haven't looked carefully into those claims, but I think we are around there. In some years full genomes will be so cheap to sequence that it will be routine. I want to buy one of those small Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencers in the future. I'll use it like a pokedex.
Cool. Thank you for doing this!
Really cool! I'm excited to learn more about you and the project!
What's the format? Should we submit questions beforehand, or will you process questions that arrive at the start time? I've never participated in an AMA 😅
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Sal
joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
Aaah, I got the fly butts first 😆
But lots of treats after that :D Thanks!!!