Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Yo, people: we’re down to only one more batch of photos, and then this feature will disappear. Today I’ll put up the singletons or doubletons that readers have contributed from time to time. Send in your photos. Captions of photos are indented, and you can enlarge them by clicking on them.
First, from Tara Tanaka (FB page here, Flickr page here and Vimeo page here), a barred owl (Strix varia):
We are in an exceptional drought here in Tallahassee. I had just put fresh water in the bird bath for the third time today when I looked out the window to see the first ever Barred Owl on the bath arriving for what would be about ten sips of water.
From Robert Lang, who submitted a “spot the” photo of a rattlesnake that was too easy. I’ll show the original, the reveal, and a video:
This is a pretty easy Spot The… entry—it’s Find the Southern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus helleri) , encountered along the Gabrielino Trail above the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (which was my employer many years ago—um, JPL, not the snake). It was noteworthy for having the longest set of rattles I’ve seen on one of our local rattlers.
Attached is the “find-the-“ photo and a close-up showing the rattles. Also, if interesting, here’s a short video. It was very mellow; never rattled, despite all the people walking by (it’s a popular trail).
I’m sure you can spot the snake in this one:
The “reveal”:
. . . and a video:
From Laura Prail in Duluth, Minnesota. It looks to me like an older buck of the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus):
We just had this fellow wander through our yard, taken with an I-phone through our front window.
Today’s wi8ldlife photos came from Charles Dunlop, who notes that they were taken in Costa Rica in 2019. I’ve indented his brief captions, and my own IDs are in brackets. Some of the animals are unidentified, so feel free to weigh in in the comments. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Bob Woolley of Asheville, North Carolina, sent in some pictures of fungi (one is a lichen, which is part fungus) and a big honking rattlesnake. Bob’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here’s a sample of mushrooms I saw on a recent hike in Pisgah National Forest, just north of the town of Old Fort, North Carolina:
A lovely lichen that ChatGPT identifies as “dog lichen,” uncertain Peltigera species:
This is absolutely not a mushroom in any manner whatsoever. It is an enormous timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus); in a magnified view, I counted 16 segments to its rattle. We saw this at the edge of the access road to the park as we were driving away:
I know nothing about mushrooms, so I asked ChatGPT to identify them. I can’t promise it got them right!
Today we have the seventh installment of Ephraim Heller’s July trip to Brazil. Ephraim’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
These photos are from my July 2025 trip to Brazil’s Amazon river and the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland area and the world’s largest flooded grasslands. Today I include photos of miscellaneous critters not otherwise categorized.
The Amazon is undammed (although there are many dams on its tributaries) and during the rainy season the river overflows its banks to flood endless forests in its watershed. One of the memorable activities of our trip was canoeing through a forest:
Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis), also known as the pink river dolphin. They are born grey and acquire their pink color with age. Their final hue is influenced by many things, including behavior, diet, and how close their capillaries are to the skin. They can modify the shape of their melon (the bulbous forehead structure) to change the direction, size, and frequency of their echolocation pulses. Their brains are 40% larger than human brains, likely explaining why they do not use social media:
Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) and cattle tyrant (Machetornis rixosa). The world’s largest rodent. Capybaras practice autocoprophagy, consuming their own protein-rich morning feces to maximize nutrient extraction from their cellulose-heavy plant diet. This behavior, combined with their ability to regurgitate food for re-chewing (similar to cattle), allows them to efficiently digest tough grasses and aquatic vegetation. Delightful:
Giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis). These are the apex predators of South American rivers. They are the most vocal of the otter species and possess a rich vocabulary. They recognize each other using throat markings that are unique to each individual. They require about 9 pounds of fish daily. While I consider our North American river otters to be cute, I found the appearance of the giant river otters to be disturbing, with crazed, sinister eyes and a somewhat Frankensteinian build. When not hunting and eating, the otters we observed spent a lot of time literally beating the bushes on land. Perhaps a reader can explain this behavior?:
Polka-dot tree frog (Boana punctatus). The polka-dot tree frog represents the first documented case of fluorescence in any amphibian species, discovered when researchers observed their bright blue-green glow under ultraviolet light. This fluorescence is produced by three unique molecules, hyloin-L1, hyloin-L2, and hyloin-G1, found in the frog’s lymph tissue, skin, and glandular secretions. These compounds belong to the dihydroisoquinolinone family and represent a completely new chemistry for animal fluorescence:
Finally, a baby spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus). Spectacled caimans use nine different vocalizations and 13 visual displays to communicate. Males also communicate by moving their tail to a certain position, such as making it vertical or arched. Juveniles vocalize when in distress and adult females emit calls to warn young of threats. This is one of the few nighttime flash photographs I took with which I am happy:
Charles Dunlop sent some photos with a short intro. His brief IDs (without species names) are below, and click to enlarge the photos. (I’ve linked to species when I can identify them, but readers can help in the comments.)
Attached are some photos that I took in Costa Rica in 2019.
Things are moving along at Botany Pond. Although the ducks have left (with only a few returning for a brief visit), six species of native fish have been introduced; a bunch of goldfish that people dumped in (probably from their aquariums) have been removed (none were killed; they are up for adoption and removed because we want only native flora and fauna in the pond); and five large “original” turtles, removed to another pond when Botany Pond was drained and fixed over the last few years, have been put back. This post documents the latest doings.
When 11 turtles were removed several years ago, they were marked by clipping off a bit of shell at the front, and then put for safekeeping in a large pond in southern Illinois. There were other turtles there, too, so to retrieve them for re-introduction to the pond, they had to be trapped, which took some time. One died in their “babysitting” pond, but there are five there, and we hope to get them next Spring.
But on October 2, the first three were released. All of the turtles were red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans), a species that is now native here, as the range has moved northward as the climate warmed. Again, these turtles must have lived in Botany Pond for a number of years when they were removed. Since it’s changed a lot since they lived here, I wonder if they remember it?
The first release. Here are the turtles in their bucket, restless and ready to go:
One just about to be introduced to the pond, hopefully her forever home. You can see a bit of the red stripe behind her eye.
The species is sexually dimorphic, with males having longer claws than females (they’re used to rake the female’s head before mating and then to hold onto her during the Act). These are short claws, ergo a female. We have at least two of each sex in the pond now, but breeding is unlikely as they bury eggs in the dirt near the pond, and those eggs have historically died during the cold winter. That’s why this is really the northernmost bit of their range.
The bottom of the shell:
Head-on shot:
. . . and the head from below. These really are beautiful animals:
Here’s a video of the first release. You can clearly see the red stripe on the last turtle released.
They will spend the winter in hibernation; right now Facilities is feeding them frozen smelt, and they can also eat the minnows supplied in the second release (below). The turtles will spend the winter huddled in special “turtle caves” that Facilities has put on the rocky pond bottom (below); they can breathe from their butts (“cloacal respiration”) while hibernating. Here’s one of the turtle caves:
Between the first and second release, a fine pair of mallards came to the pond, but, sadly, flew away after a day when snorkelers (!) went into the pond to capture the goldfish. Ducks will not tolerate the presence of any humans in the pond.
I really, really miss the ducks, and almost none have stopped by the Pond on their way south. Here’s the handsome mated pair that we had for two days:
The second release of turtles was on Oct. 9.
The pair in their bucket, raring to go:
Note the red stripe on the head that gives this species its name:
Front view:
Bottom view. As you see, these turtles can be distinguished by the pattern on the bottom of their shells (compare to the ones above and below).
Big difference! The short claws indicate that this is another girl turtle:
The first released of two. They seem a bit flummoxed for a short while, and then they take off like a shot.
A close-up video of a released turtle. Note the longer claws: this is a male.
And the released minnows:
The turtles appear to have taken to their homes on the bottom lately (they can go several hours underwater without breathing), and I’ve seen them only rarely. They get their smelts twice a week and there is also dry turtle food (Mazuri Aquatic Turtle food) and the living minnows.
But I await the ducks next spring. There better be some!
Today we have photos from New Zealand taken by reader Todd: birds, landscapes, and even a tuatara. His captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here are a few photos from a trip I took earlier this year to New Zealand. It’s a very beautiful country with many unique species of birds (many of which seem to have evolved a spherical body plan).
As you will see from the descriptions I (sadly) have no formal biology training, but I’ll do my best.
This is a tomtit (Petroica macrocephala). I put it at about a 5 out of 5 on the roundness scale:
These are one of my favorite New Zealand birds (despite being only moderately round) … New Zealand fantails (Rhipidura fuliginosa). They flit around in the manner of butterflies using their tails as air brakes all the while emitting squeaks that sound like someone squeezing a dog toy. The second bird looks angry, but it’s just squeaking:
These potato-shaped birds are Wekas (Gallirallus australis). They can’t fly so they stomp around like they mean business instead. They seem to have no innate fear, which might explain their status as a vulnerable species:
Red-Billed Gulls (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae scopulinus) on the coast. I’ve included it because I thought the picture was pretty:
The Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula) is an introduced species, which probably explains its utter lack of sphericality:
These beautiful parrots are Kākās (Nestor meridionalis). They were photographed at Zealandia an enclosed eco-sanctuary near Wellington (there’s a perimeter fence to keep out the possums, weasels and cats). They are wild birds, but are attracted to the sanctuary thanks to feeders:
I think this is a North Island Robin (Petroica longipes). This tiny orb landed next to me and I was lucky to get its photo before it took off again:
Not the best picture, but I’m pretty sure this is a New Zealand bellbird (Anthornis melanura). I’ll bet it was named before Star Wars came out because its call sounds exactly like the sounds made by R2D2 and not like a bell at all:
I was stopped by the side of the road taking photos of the scenery, when I heard a ‘thunk’ and turned around to find a Kea (Nestor notabilis) on the roof of my Kia. I was initially thrilled, but like a bad house guest who overstays their welcome it soon became clear its true intent was to strip the rental car for parts it could fence on the black market. The Kea is universally described as “mischievous”, but I think people are just trying to be polite:
Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) – This reptile looks like a tiny dinosaur, and for good reason … it’s the sole surviving member of a group of ancient reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs:
A lagniappe, the most famous shrub in all of New Zealand: The Wanaka Tree. The setting shows off the beauty of this wonderful country:
