Profile avatar
haruspex.bsky.social
Zoo pathologist 🧪💀🧑🏻‍⚕️ She/her 🏳️‍🌈 Unsettling animal facts, inadvisable humor, & ridiculous cat pics. Posts are my own and do not represent current, past, or future employers. My day job: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/zoo-animal-deaths
2,090 posts 1,506 followers 657 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 11 Comments 39

Rough day, but Morale Officer Miles is putting in the overtime to keep spirits up.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Follow up: Honor to the Fixation Fairy! I truly did not expect formalin to work as well as it did in tamping down the olfactory horrorshow that was this otter’s anal glands. It was still identifiably more musky than the rest of the tissue, but only moderately noticeable at the downdraft table.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Throwback to that time when I, random zoo pathologist on the internet, gave everyone a Lessons in Decapitation and Disarticulation™️. Because spines are a pain in the ass, but badly-done decapitation scenes are a solvable problem.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Your reminder that Humboldt Fog cheese, Humboldt County, CA, the Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti),and the Humboldt Current that allows wine grapes to grow in Chile are all named for an 18th C gay scientist whose love letters were all burned and who left his entire estate to his “valet.” 🏳️‍🌈

submitted 8 days ago • 79 comments

🧪 Public Service Announcement: This is your reminder to never pour bleach on maggots. Maggots produce ammonia. A lot of maggots produce quite a bit of ammonia. Bleach and ammonia is a bad combo (chloramines). Please do not gas yourself with maggots, friends. It’s an embarrassing way to go.

submitted 5 days ago • 7 comments

Barrayar by LM Bujold is one of my comfort re-reads. The whole series is phenomenal. Go read Cordelia’s Honor immediately if you haven’t already! And yes, I have an undersized but over-charming medically complicated cat named Miles. He probably hasn’t caused an interplanetary incident today.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Oh Costco. How dare you make me ask these questions of myself! I did not need to be here, on a Tuesday afternoon, minding my business, suddenly debating whether I or any of my loved ones might need a bodacious bonsai.

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

🧪 Fun Friday Fact: Many catfish species have venom glands in their armpits! Finpits? Pectoral fin axillae. Whatever. Also, the nuclei of those gland cells are HUGE AND WEIRD. If you aren’t expecting huge and weird, you might think there was something wrong. Nope. Just the pit venom gland.

submitted 183 days ago • 16 comments

It’s not every day that I take something fresh OUT of the necropsy building because I don’t want it to stink the place up. Yes. The building with the walk-in cooler of dead stuff. The building that handles rotten fish frequently. That building. Today was that day. 1/

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

🧪 Had an absolute blast with @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and his MS students on an actual shark science trip! And I got to meet this gorgeous bonnethead gal! Wonderful experience to talk to the students and provide information about future career options while immersed in real field work.

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

Inspired by Vietnam-era activism, Stand Up For Science is hosting a series of teach-ins around the USA this summer, focusing on the importance of science and science funding. I’m doing one May 30th in Silver Spring. Many of you should consider doing one too, and I’m happy to help you plan it 🦑🧪🌎

submitted 31 days ago • 10 comments