Northerlyy - Terminally Insane About Animals. It's Contagious.

Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis), juvenile female, taken September 22, 2024, in Georgia, US

I had the pleasure of seeing this baby anole for a week or so straight! She had taken shelter in a sturdy pile of sticks and leaves on my usual route and would always run for cover when I came by. This day, however, she graced me with her presence and cooperation.

Psyllid (Genus Craspedolepta), taken April 4, 2025, in Georgia, US

Psyllid time!!! I was very excited to see one of these guys while inspecting some flowers for exciting stuff. These definitely count as exciting! I've only seen a few psyllids ever, but they're so, so cool. Much like aphids, they are very picky about what they eat from, and many are single-host specialists, so it's important to know what the psyllid you find is eating from (if it's feeding) or sitting on to have the best chance at a species ID! I tend to document all of the flowers I see insects visiting to annotate them on iNat, but I don't have this one yet (somehow), so I'll have to get back outside and check lol. For now, genus is as far as I can go with this!

Orchard Orbweaver (Leucauge venusta), female, taken April 28, 2024, in Georgia, US

A lovely young lady! I believe she's still subadult because she isn't very dark yet, but she's still beautiful! Orchard Orbweavers can be identified by the orange smiley face on the ventral (under) side of their abdomen, which you can see a bit of in this image. They're one of the most common orbweavers in my area—absolutely all over grasses and shrubs during the spring!

i'm trying to write about The Wonders Of Nature again and it's like...such a Big thing that has a strangle hold on peoples brains its hard to articulate it powerfully enough to break down that barrier.

Essentially trying to say, "There is so much stuff in the natural world that is so beautiful and so cool it puts anything your imagination could come up with to shame. And I don't just mean in a remote jungle reserve somewhere, I mean where YOU live. HOME."

but it's just hard to convey the Intensity of it. cause im not exaggerating when I say that the coolness and fantastic beauty of the world so far exceeds the access most people have to information and experience of it, that starting to learn can provoke this kind of defensive reaction or even like. automatic dismissal or blindness to these experiences when they DO happen.

At least it happened to me. I remember when i was a kid a purple passionflower grew in our yard and i automatically assumed it was someone's weird garden plant that had escaped, rather than a wild plant that was growing naturally in its habitat.

it just kind of breaks the logic of the world I guess? why, in a world where purple passionflower grows by itself, would the landscape be a razed, sterilized wasteland of turfgrass maintained by homeowners that destroy every unfamiliar weed like theyre fighting off a zombie apocalypse

Tan Jumping Spider (Platycryptus undatus), female, taken October 28, 2023, in Georgia, US

A head-on view of a small jumping friend! You can see her tapping her palps on the post as she moves, likely for extra sensory input. She was quite wary of me, but she was nice and allowed me to take a nice video and get a couple pictures! Tan jumpers have such fuzzy faces, unlike most other jumpers I see, and that gives them extra cuteness points in my head!

Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens), female, taken March 7, 2025, in Georgia, US

A woodpecker sitting like a perching bird for once in its life... These guys are so funny to watch, especially when they sit on the feeder perches and look around them, flinging their whole body in every direction to get all the best angles. It's quite impressive, honestly, even if they look ridiculous doing it!

Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp (Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus), female, taken August 3, 2024, in Georgia, US

Digging a hole in the sand! There were a few different species of sand wasps flying around this area, but most ran before I could get to them. I missed this lady initially storing her prey, but I did get her filling in the hole! She posed very prettily at the end, maybe showing off her hard work!

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), male, taken May 9, 2025, in Georgia, US

Looking quite sharp in more than one way! This guy must have just finished his spring molt—those feathers are spotless! I'm still seeing some bald and semi-bald cardinals running around, so the molt is still underway, but they, too, shall be fresh and beautiful like this guy afterwards!

does iNaturalist really help research? Or it's just for fun and to help U feel love for the wildlife around U?

Yep! Research Grade observations are called that for a reason, they be and are used by plenty of researchers! There have been papers written on iNaturalist data, species have been described via iNaturalist, and so on. I personally have collected and sent specimens to multiple researchers who have contacted me because of my iNaturalist observations even

Though it is also fun :>

Banded Fishing Spider (Dolomedes vittatus), female, taken September 27, 2024, in Georgia, US

Aside from maybe Joro Spiders, this is one of the largest spiders I find in my area. I almost stepped on this girl while I was circling a tree, and she shot out of the leaves and scared the crap out of me! She was a wonderful model, though, unlike her cousins the White-banded Fishing Spiders (Dolomedes albineus) who are hateful and cannot sit still.