SpookyScience

by @witchdoctor.bsky.social

A feed for my spooky science and macabre medicine posts! Add to the feed with #SpookyScience, #MacabreMedicine, 🖤🧪, or 🧪🩺

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Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Jan 10
6

Dracula parrots, also known as Pesquet’s parrots or vulturine parrots, lives in the rainforests of New Guinea. They have hooked beaks and feather-less heads, unlike other parrots, giving them a vulture look. The parrot feeds almost exclusively on figs ♥️🖤 #SpookyScience 🧪

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 31
1

On this last day of #SpookyScience for October, I’d like to share something that made me giddy when I saw it in person: Galileo’s middle finger (Museo Galileo, Florence, Italy). With attacks on scientists, this continues to resonate with me 🧪 🖕🏽 It has since been joined by two more fingers and a 🦷!

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 25
2

With all the glow-in-the-dark pjs, I am reminded of the radium girls for #SpookyScience In the early 1900s, many young women were putting paintbrushes between their lips to make a fine tip and more precisely paint radium onto watches and clocks. The girls themselves would glow, yet one by one… 1/2

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 22
3

This is my kinda ghost hunting! The blue ghost firefly is a rare but beautiful site in some parts of eastern and central US. During mating season (May/June), the male fireflies can be seen emitting a blue-green light (the females don’t fly and emit a fainter light). #SpookyScience 🧪

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 19
2

#SpookyScience for today and Sunday will be spiders! This is a female spiny-backed orb weaver, Gasteracantha cancriformis (gaster = belly, acantha = thorn in Greek & cancer = crab, formis = shape/form in Latin). They are native to the Americas and have short lifespans, living till reproduction 🧪 🕷️

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 19
2

The swamp-dwelling ‘bald cypress’ is today’s #SpookyScience feature (and Louisiana’s state 🌲)! The bald cypress is a pneumatophore, with roots growing just below the surface then protruding ⬆️ (believed to help the tree breathe). The tree’s “knees” don’t always look this spooky, but what a shot 📸 🧪

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 17
0

Today’s #SpookyScience is giving 🧠 vibes! Ascocoryne sarcoides (sarkodes = fleshy in Greek) is also known as the purple jellydisc. This fungus is found in North American and European forests, may help prevent tree rot fungal infection, and exhibits antibiotic properties in the lab 🧪

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 15
2

Today’s #SpookyScience is this adorable little 🐸, believed to be the most poisonous animal species alive. The golden poison dart frog is about the size of a paper clip. Small but mighty, its skin is coated in about a milligram of deadly cardio- and neurotoxic alkaloid batrachotoxins 🧪

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 12
2

Happy Saturday! Today for #SpookyScience, meet Acanthaspis petax, a species of assassin bug. You know how in zombie shows, some of the characters smear zombie goo on them for camouflage? The nymphs (not adults) will wear a pile of ant corpses on their backs 🐜 🧪

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 10
1

Actaea pachypoda is a perennial plant native to North America. Its berries resemble doll eyes, and sure enough, the plant is nicknamed “doll’s-eyes” 👁️ To add to the spooky factor, the plant and berries are poisonous; ingestion can lead to cardiac arrest and death! #SpookyScience 🧪

Witch Doctor @witchdoctor.bsky.social · Oct 4
1

#SpookyScience Bats are associated with spooky season, but I love these flying mammals year round 🖤 Their main predator? Disease 😥 Pictured here is a 🦇 with white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has killed 90+% of northern long-eared, little brown, and tri-colored bat populations in <10 years 🧪