Cover illustration for the book Nursery Earth. This was a fun one :) Book Author @dannastaaf.bsky.social Published by The Experiment Books #art #digitalart #booksky #illustration
https://www.dannastaaf.com/ Author, artist, speaker with a fondness for cephalopods. Books: 🦑 Monarchs of the Sea 👩🔬 The Lady and the Octopus 🐣 Nursery Earth 🐙 The Lives of Octopuses and Their Relatives Newsletter: https://buttondown.com/dannastaaf
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Cover illustration for the book Nursery Earth. This was a fun one :) Book Author @dannastaaf.bsky.social Published by The Experiment Books #art #digitalart #booksky #illustration
That's the next panel!! 🤩
I think the answer is simply "yes!" 😆 Pretty much all octopuses that have been studied have dicyemids. In fact, there's some evidence that these "parasites" may be symbionts that help with excretion! I'll write about that in a future panel but here is a reference: link.springer.com/content/pdf/...
I'm squeezing a new panel of octopus pee worms into #InverteFest! (I'd hoped to finish two more panels after this one, but August wrecked me, so they'll have to wait for the next round) 🐙🦑🧪
I just applied! I'm so excited! #InverteFest
Of the many writers to predict AI, only Douglas Adams got the tone right
Aww yay! @dannajoystaaf if you haven't already found it ❤️🐙
sounds like something someone in fish hell would suggest
Hiiii friends! I'm drawing a sequel to this, in honor of reaching 1K followers on IG--any suggestions for more of the number one thousand in cephalopod facts? I'm currently researching whether there's a cephalopod with 1000 photophores, but weirdly nobody seems to have sat down and counted . . . 🦑
A fine point (and a fine sentence)! Though I'd be more ready to believe she could have a facultative anus if she were part comb jelly, rather than part cephalopod . . . www.livescience.com/64956-ctenop...
Glow-in-the-Dark Succulents Could Be the Future of Ambient Lighting gizmodo.com/glow-in-the-...
Activities for this season of #InverteFest: Community science www.inaturalist.org/projects/inv... Art book submission form docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHk... Writer/artist collab anthology bsky.app/profile/saim...
Frankly offended at the preponderance of arthropods in the replies. Consider the cnidarians (fire coral! box jelly!), the echinoderms (crown of thorns! flower urchin!), the MOLLUSCS (cone snail, giant clam, vampire squid!!)!!!! #invertefest
It's time for #InverteFest, BRING OUT YOUR BUGS! Go find bugs, draw bugs, have a seance with bugs but most importantly share bugs (all inverts). We'll have a special announcement soon as well. Plus, we've got this poster in multiple languages on our website! www.metrofieldguide.com/invertefest/
🧪 Hello everyone! Please join me and others from @theopennotebook.bsky.social team TOMORROW, Aug. 26 at 2 pm ET for a Town Hall event on Zoom, where we’ll kick off our 15th-birthday celebration! BRING YOUR OWN CAKE! 🎂 This event will be recorded. Registration link: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
What a FABULOUS word
hahahahaha I can just hear the quiet menace of "I know the difference." uttered by a soon-to-be four-year-old kudos to your kid! 🦑🎂
ok I had to look that one up: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountai... shockingly, "cow" is not too far off, as apparently they're ALL bovids (including "true" goats!)
Is that better or worse than it also not being a vampire? 😆 At least there's good company in the Animals with Misleading Names club. If @rosemarymosco.com ever draws Part II, maybe vampire squid can make an appearance! rosemarymosco.com/comics/bird-...
I dug up both the diagram and Sarah's post because I'm currently trying to respond to a copy editor's very reasonable query about what a squid is
if you've ever wanted to know EXACTLY what makes a squid a squid, I made this helpful diagram last #Squidtember
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
Thanks to whomever just purchased my squid size comp t-shirt, I remembered that it exists! What better time to enhance your squid-drobe than when 🦑Squidtember🦑 is just around the corner? www.zazzle.com/squid_sizes_...
TIL that one of my favorite scenes in LOTR is a fixit fic for the Birnam Wood scene in Macbeth and I could not be more delighted
The crossover I never knew I needed
I'm reading THE CHAOS MACHINE rec'd by @beebrookshire.bsky.social and "Social media probably can’t be fixed" by @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social rec'd by @theopennotebook.bsky.social arstechnica.com/science/2025... Excellent, important, scary. Gonna take a break to sit in the sun and draw squid pee worms
I'd love that! And I'm so glad they streamed the book launch--it was so funny and insightful and lovely and delightful! HUGE congratulations!!!
"If your mother is going through some stuff, do not teach her how to do magic. It will not help." 😂 One of my favorite authors is doing her book launch at @greenapplebooks.bsky.social right now and you can tune in! www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBlz...
It's almost like I learned something from our panel 😆 Thanks!!
*happy internal scream* ...may I put this on my website under "nice things people say about my books"?
What incredible company, thank you!! I'm already a huge Entangled Life fan, now I'm excited to read the others on this list 👀
Yay! I hope you enjoy it! If we lived closer I would offer to get coffee and read them together. I grew up reading them aloud with my brother and it's so much fun
A friend spotted The Lady and the Octopus in her daughter's middle school library! Thrilled to see Jeanne Villepreux-Power in such fine company. 🤩📚🐙👩🔬
That's so beautiful, thank you for sharing! I have many beloved poems, but what comes to mind in the context of #InverteFest is Joyful Noise by Paul Fleischman--a bookful of funny, poignant, exuberant insect poems, written to be read by two voices at once. www.harpercollins.com/products/joy...
I have a *prolific* grapevine this year, and I keep taking the regular ol' kitchen scissors outside to harvest the bunches. I'm curious now about what it would feel like to level up to specialty grape scissors!
Everyone sign up for my new computer science class, entitled "No. Stop. Don't."
My latest newsletter covers the comic-con panel I did with @octopolis.bsky.social and @xjosuecruz.bsky.social, deep-sea research by @kakanikatija.bsky.social @mbarinews.bsky.social, and an explainer of the mysterious software life cycle buttondown.com/dannastaaf/a...
This August, we're aiming for the ambitious number of 100 artists in the art book. Submit now while the form is still open! docs.google.com/forms/d/1KaR...
We had an inkredible time showing #sdcc how to draw an octopus! This is a highlight reel, follow me, @dannastaaf.bsky.social and @xjosuecruz.bsky.social for more as we comb through the footage
🚨🐌GIANT MEDIEVAL SNAIL FICTION🐌🚨by the inestimably skilled @maryrobinettekowal.com Thrilling, touching, gorgeous! (However, as an avowed molluscophile, I may need to write a snail-sympathetic story of my own)
Oh WOW this was incredible, thank you SO MUCH!!! 🐌
👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋🐙
I am SO excited for you, and for each one of these fantastic venues! Everyone is going to have an amazing time! Unfortunately I can't join in person, but I plan to tune in online to the Green Apple event!!
Ooh yes, I've heard Tessa talk a little bit about this! I haven't read the paper though (paywall 🙃) but it looks really cool
A marine biologist and an octopus walk into a prison. Incarcerated students discuss intelligence, captivity, and connection. This is a FANTASTIC story. (h/t @tonmo.com where I found the link) thunderword.highline.edu/2025/07/17/t...
I read "octopus crawl by creating a modified foot that persists throughout the behavior" and couldn't rest until I dragged the octopus for it 🐙🦑🐡
Here's a sticker design I've had on my list for a LONG time. Whenever I see ospreys flying with their prey I get "A Whole New World" stuck in my head and it cracks me up every single time. Now you can get my dumb idea in sticker form! www.thornwolf.com/shop/p/ospre... #BSNM #Birdsky #SciArt
These are fantastic ideas, haha! I found a cool article about it: theconversation.com/why-medieval... Suggesting "One theory is that these doodles added humour to texts which were otherwise quite dry and serious."
There is no tech either good or bad but humans make it so, and this strategy for describing species nonlethally is, imo, tech use at its best 🤩🧪
Excited to share that our manuscript "In situ lightfield imaging of octopus locomotion reveals simplified control" has been published in @nature.com. www.nature.com/articles/s41... If you love 🧪🌎🦑🌊, keep reading this thread! 1/n
My fingers are ITCHING to write a story about this (and if anyone else does/has done, I would love to read it)
SQUID! PEE! WORMS! (sorry I'm irregularly on social media)
I tell people this all the time! PhDs are matters of persistence (and getting there often a matter of privilege), not intelligence. We just know a lot about a very very very tiny slice of the world.
This is tonight! Los Angeles! Come say hi!
I just got done updating the events page on my website with all my updated tour info! www.charliejaneanders.com/events There are links to RSVP for my events in: San Francisco (8/19) Portland (8/20) Chicago (8/21) Los Angeles (8/22) Seattle (8/25) Please do RSVP! It helps the bookstore prepare. <3
Parental care is everywhere, once you start to look for it! (Not just in trucks 😉)
Exactly what I was thinking of 😆
I was wondering about that! Maybe it's a runt that got pushed to the less desirable position by its siblings?
It does!! I saw a video a while back of an excavator building a nest, I think, but haven't been able to find it again... This rescue is amazing 🥰
My first time observing parental care in trucks 🥹 and with such a large brood! 😲 Guessing these juveniles will strike out on their own pretty soon 🥳
Yay! It's such a lovely book! And they made it into a GAME which my kids also love: www.mindware.orientaltrading.com/search-for-a...
What a rush! I’m still basking in the glow that was this weekend. Thank you everyone who made San Diego Comic-con unforgettable! Grateful to my co-panelists @dannastaaf.bsky.social and @xjosuecruz.bsky.social for bringing the event to the next level.
thank uuuuu
I made Octopunch into a mini-zine! I'm so excited to share these at Comic-Con today 🤩🐙
of all the blurry awful photos I've taken of my little aquatic ecosystem in a jar, this might be the worst, but I'm just so happy I saw these two amphipods making more amphipods 🥹🤏🦐
This weekend is San Diego Comic-con and for the very first time, Octopolis will be there as an exhibitor!!!! Come visit me in the small press section, I look forward to seeing you! #sdcc #cci #sandiego #sandiegocomiccon #octopolis #comicconinternational
Ahhhh thank you! I almost tagged it SciArt, but second-guessed myself on account of its speculative nature 😅
observations of a naturalist in silicon valley
I'll be on a workshop panel at San Diego Comic-Con! Can't wait to speak and sketch alongside incredible artists @octopolis.bsky.social and @xjosuecruz.bsky.social We'll make folks laugh, learn, and hopefully love octopuses! comiccon2025.sched.com/event/2736n/... ...yes I will share all my cursed art
You're welcome! 😃
ShipNutella001
I think we need more "informal tests"
Haha yes! That half-paragraph about "informal tests" really gets the imagination going...
ShipGoo001 🧪 (2/2) - The only sample is what's in the coffee cup because they CLEANED THE RUDDER SHAFT ARGH - that said, I agree with this guy: “I don’t think this ship is unique [in harboring undescribed life]." - We are probably surrounded by mystery goo at all times. Life is beautiful
pls I want to talk about ShipGoo001 🧪 (1/2) - It contains "new" life, i.e. undescribed microbes, but they belong to known domains (Archaea & Bacteria) - They are not aliens - The research isn't yet peer-reviewed; more details/mistakes may surface - WHAT ARE THEY EATING www.popsci.com/science/ship...
to see my art on a lab bulletin board is true joy 🥰
My latest newsletter celebrates suction cups, iridescence, and comics! 🐙🦑🧪 buttondown.com/dannastaaf/a...
I have considered it! But I'm too aligned with the cephalopods, in craving the freedom to perennially change my appearance, so I just draw on different temporary tattoos from time to time.
TAing that course was honestly a pretty formative experience! I learned so much, from all the undergrad molecular biology I'd forgotten to the fact that not everyone cares about teaching. 😜 I'm so glad we met then and that we're still in touch online. 🥰
That's so valid of you! My hair was even a similar length when we met. I don't have many photos from early grad school, but I was able to dredge one up 😁 🤝 also a longtime Rosemary Mosco fan; I aspire to one day create something as funny and educational as The Birding Dictionary
Haha, that has also been known to happen in our house! 😆
The Bored Book, first half. A project inspired by my kids, my therapist friend, and my desperate need to see more faires with dipteran wings. Second half in the thread!
It's high summer in the northern hemisphere, when the plaintive "I'm-bored-I'm-bored-I'm-bored" call of juvenile humans is often heard! I've made a little zine you can distribute to your local wildlife: www.dannastaaf.com/p/the-bored-...
I can't stop repeating the phrase "porcelain nautilus" in my head, send help, I'm being haunted
I loved that book! It legitimately changed my worldview
haha all options have their delights
yes yes BRILLIANT
there's nothing to worry about, it's a mutually beneficial symbiosis! you and the toilet have the same end goal! never in evolutionary history have symbiotes turned into parasites please don't look behind the curtain
given the admittedly unproven but extremely appealing hypothesis that everything is creechur, my money is usually on "some kind of shelled invertebrate"
Tracking the expert commentary on this thread, it seems clear that "toilet" is a paraphyletic group containing members from wildly different clades that have converged on similarity of form due to a convergent diet/lifestyle (sessile coprophagy). Here's a quick sketch of just a few representatives
some of them are! but "toilet" is a paraphyletic group, describing a convergent lifestyle (coprophagy) and accompanying anatomy/behavior that have evolved independently in many groups... i'm working on a diagram
you're living life the way it was meant to be lived, franz 🙌
yay! I'm so happy you both enjoyed it! thank you for letting me know and please tell Squid she has the best name 🦑
Happy Happy Birfdai to @beebrookshire.bsky.social! Celebrate by buying her book bookshop.org/p/books/pest... #scicomm
YES in fact I would hold up ALL your beautiful monsters as icons in this genre
thank you bluesky for loving my cursed art! I'm delighted to share that a polished version of this illustration will show up in my next book 🐡
my favorite review 😁
And that is why I made it!! The whole "head-foot" body organization can be so puzzling, and this (I hope) makes it clearer.
