Infestations on some plants are quite heavy, and readily detectable at night by thermal imaging
Dried fruit that fell from a pawpaw (Asimina triloba) when I shook the tree. A few pods dropped.
No idea what these are. Presumably some sort of fungus, but iNat is suggesting a lot of slime molds, so I don't know.
Larva found in a creek. I have found an adult E. longicauda x guttolineata in this creek before. This larva has both the herringbone pattern on the tail and a broken dark middorsal line.
On Ferocactus wislizeni. I'm presuming the weird growth is due to a fungus, but I have no idea.
Observation for the cactus is here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/206779969
This looks like P. shenandoah to me. Note blackish dorsal coloration; narrow, reddish mid-dorsal stripe. Although I don't have an image of its underside, the black-and-white pattern on the belly of the Eastern Red-backed Salamander is usually slightly visible on the sides. I found this one atop one of the only three mountain tops (Hawksbill) in Shenandoah National Park where it can be found. This is one of the most range restricted tetrapod (four feet) vertebrates in the world only occupying a maximum potential range of 800 acres.
On upper hawksbill trail on a rainy 55 F night. I tried to post them all individually, even though many were just a few feet from each other.
All on the same tree as the ones in this observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/193724156
I've collected a few in the hopes of getting a better ID for them once they emerge.
No leaves on the tree, due to the season, so insofar as identifying the tree will help to confirm this ID it will need to wait until Spring (unless someone is able to identify the tree based on its bark).
Eight phenotypes are currently known of the Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus): the red-backed (striped), lead-backed (unstriped), and erythristic morphs, as well as the iridistic, albino, leucistic, amelanistic, and melanistic colour anomalies. This website shows examples of all of them:
https://www.amphibia-nature.org/en/projects/amphibians-reptiles/colorations-plethodon/
Strange black area on deertongue. No idea what causes this.
Dense growth in a (red?) pine tree. Possibly witches brooming.
Marshy iridescent corner of Moody Lake with a biofilm formation of the bacterium Leptothrix discophora, a naturally occurring metabolizing colony found in many low-movement ponds, wetlands, and vernal pools;
for the Wax Myrtle (Morella cerifera) shrub at the water's edge cf. inaturalist.org/observations/105948634
Growing in Monotropa uniflora
Growing in Monotropa uniflora
This observation is for the green ring in the flower.
The observation for the ghost pipes is here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/175196539
The mold on the stigma. On Monotropa uniflora
Quercus macrocarpa
Neotibicen latifasciatus chorus. The recording doesn't really convey just how many there were and how loud the sound was. This one spot was almost as dense with N Latifasciatus as Brood X was with Magicicada last year. Similarly, exuviae were everywhere as well.
Image scanned from a slide taken August 22, 1999. We were doing field work on tortoises and iguanas for the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galapagos National Park Service at the time. Estimate the true locality within a kilometer of this point.