Tara Chestnut, PhD

@tcastanea.bsky.social

1382 Followers 1322 Following

Wildlife Ecology | Natural History | Disease | Invasive Species | Contaminants | Aquatic Science | Reintroductions | Science Communication | March Mammal Madness narrator | she/her

close up a blue hued photo of a humpback whale underwater.
Close up photo of a pacific lamprey. It has smooth olive green skin with six gill holes running down the top third of its side. It's eye is blueish black and its sucker mouth is pointed down.
Front view photo of a dark grey lizard with an and adorable orange potbelly, posing on a rock of the same grey color, posed like a senior portrait. It's head is turned to the right and it's gorgeous reddish-brown eye has a glimmer of light.
Photo of me and my derpy girl Peque, a black and tan All-American Dog, sitting on a log on the Pacific Coast. I am looking down at her with a derpy look on my face giving her nice pets. She is wearing a blue leash and I am holding it.
A round puffy light grey songbird with black wings, tail, beak and eyemask perched on a stick. The bright blue sky is clear behind the bird
An enormous black and yellow banded wasp with golden-brown eyes, legs and wings. It is hugging a cicada belly to belly in a patch of bright green grass. By hugging, I mean the wasp has captured the cicada and stung it to paralyze it and take it back to it's lair to feed it's larvae alive. The cicada is larger than the wasp, has a white belly and a green back
A western spotted skunk in a garage behind old windows stored in a garage. It is peering through the glass in the most adorable way
Me (a middle aged white lady with silver-brown hair, wearing green coveralls) is crouched down next to a black 5 gallon bucket in a stunningly green old growth forest on the Eastside of Mount Rainier National Park. As I open the lid on the bucket I say “ready”? The person filming says “yep”! As a western spotted skunk prances off into the woods out of sight I say “bye little buddy”!
Screenshot of a website called reptileshub.com Two lines are highlighted in purple “Washington is home to four native turtle species”, “North American river otter” Narrator: A turtle is a reptile. A river otter is a mammal. Also, sea turtles occur in Washington’s marine waters.
Photo of Society for Northwestern Vertebrate Biology (SNVB) Leadership award being presented. The “award” is a repurposed soccer ball piñata, where the black parts of the ball have been turned into anatomically correct SARS-COV-2 viruses showing protein structures. SNVB stickers are placed in the white space of the soccer ball. The piñata is filled with Nerds candy and salty chips.
A photo of a glassy lake with conifer trees and clouds reflecting in the water. There are concentric ripples emerging from a blob in the center of the photo that I promise is a platypus that just dove under the water.
Close up photo of a clean toilet in a public restroom showing the back quarter of the toilet, plumbing and flushing apparatus. On the light gray wall above the toilet is a placard saying: “Non-potable water Do not drink”
White, gray and tan tabby cat sleeping on my bed, splayed out with belly exposed and legs in all directions taking up 10 times the space she needs in my spot in the bed at bedtime. I just want to sleep too Kittay!!
Screenshot that has a red triangle with an exclamation point inside of it with the text “Please see below for further scheduling instructions. 2025/2026 COVID Vaccine Formulation is being paused and not yet available”. Below the text is a blue box with text “Start over” inside of it.
The marque of the historic Mayan Theater in Los Angeles reads: MAYAN presents Lucha Va Voom de la Liz SOLD OUT
Fresh black bear tracks in tannish-gray colored mud at a reservoir in Washington State. There are also older animal tracks in the mud including great blue heron, goose, domestic dog and human - well presumably human unless the animals have started wearing shoes ;)
Selfie of a white lady with silver-brown hair (me!) wearing a light blue dress with stylized leaves on it. She has a big grin on her face and is in front of one of the largest known American Chestnut tree specimens (her surname sake) in North America and a stone monument describing the circumstances around why it was planted at this location.
Photo of an all gender roller derby team in the middle of a jam. It’s an indistinguishable cluster of bodies, arms, legs and wheels. I am in the front of the pack wearing a silver jersey attempting to block skaters wearing black jerseys from passing me. I am very low.
Photo of me, a white lady with brown hair and tattoos on her arms, waist up from the back in roller derby gear. I’m wearing a silver jersey with black lettering that has my derby name ‘Pestilence’ and number ‘240’, black and white elbow pads, and a silver ‘panty’ on my helmet with a black stripe down the middle - indicating my position as a pivot.
Package of amazingly delicious sheep feta cheese in brine. The hard plastic packaging is stamped with the words “100% PCR, recycle at New Seasons Market”.
Front view color photo of a Cascade red fox in the snow. She is staring intently at the camera. Her coloration is called “cross”, where she is a stunning combination of black, gray and blonde. The white tipped tail is the key field mark for red foxes throughout their range regardless of their coloring, which can vary from black to gray to red to blonde or cross.
Side view X-ray of my guts from my neck to my upper legs showing a T6-10 spinal fusion and pelvis with 13 screws and a plate
A panoramic photo in the subalpine parklands of Mount Rainier National Park, about a half mile downhill from Paradise, the most visited place in the park. The hillside is covered in lush green vegetation, peppered with andesite boulders that are mostly light gray in color. In the center of the photo, a middle-aged white lady sits smiling next to a pinkish andesite boulder. The Paradise Road is difficult to see but it’s about 20 feet above her. On June 23, 2021, the lady was crushed by that boulder.
Bar graph showing two groups, based on age, of males (dark blue) and females (light blue) in early and mid adulthood who experience snake bites in Australia. In the 18-24 group, males are nearly twice as likely as females to be bitten by a snake. In the 25-44 group, the number of males is closer, but still larger, than the number female. In both age groups, females have a similar number of snake bites. *error bars are not reported
A very blurry pic of a dark rectangular blob that the poster says is a small mammal running across a dirt road littered with dry tan colored eucalyptus leaves.
Diet and Nutrition Sheathbills are opportunistic omnivores, predators and scavengers, feeding on strandline debris, algae and other vegetation, as well as on invertebrates, fish, seabird eggs and chicks, seal milk, blood, placentas, carrion, faeces, rodents and human refuse. https://animalia.bio/black-faced-sheathbill
Photo of a black and tan kelpie mix standing in a patch of tall bright green grass with a beautiful forest in the background. She is wearing a pink and green collar and a blue leash. She is selectively eating blades of grass.
An illustrated figure from Dunford et al. (2020) showing the proposed movement patterns of pumas on inclines. One puma silhouette is shown on light green level ground, taking a direct path towards a hill, while a second puma silhouette is shown with a path up the darker green hill. The path ascends the hill diagonally, zig-zagging back and forth up the incline.
Photo of a light tan mountain lion walking across a grassy meadow with low growing shrubs. There is part of a carcass in the background on the right that is a little blurry. (c) pfaucher – some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Photo of a Chacoan Peccary laying down having a nap in a scrape of light brown soil. It's head is HUGE, about 1/4 the size of it's body. It has uniform brown/gray coarse hair on it's body. (c) Travis – some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Photo of a Chacoan Peccary in it's native habitat of grass and thorn scrub. It is standing on a dirt road, facing sideways with one leg raise d. It is in an alert posture with stiff hairs standing erect with the sun shining through them, it's skin appearing like a white line down it's back. It is a grizzled gray brown color with reddish highlights.
A large female horseshoe crab on a tan sandy beach surrounded on all sides by 5 smaller male horseshoe crabs trying to climb on top of her. They are olive green with light orange highlights. Photo by PBS
Crisp photo with saturated colors of a Great White Pelican flying over clear blue water with soft ripples. It's body and head feathers are bright white that fades into a pale yellow on it's chest. The flight feathers (primaries) are black with a white rachis, and it's pink feet are trailing slightly behind a very stubby tail. It's eyes pink with a black iris. The gular pouch is a glorious bright yellow. The long upper mandible has a red line along the length of the beak and the lower mandible has a dark line along it's length, giving it a lovely contrast. Photo from Nature Photo Library
Overhead photo of the "Great Garbage Patch" aka the Pacific Gyre in the Pacific Ocean
High resolution photo of a Prochlorococcus cyanobacteria. They are in small clusters with clear bodies with round green blobs in the middle.
Close up photo that I took of mountain beaver fleas at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington in Seattle
Getty image - side view photo of a shaggy pig-like animal called a Chocoan Peccary. It's bristly fur is medium gray with light gray highlights. The legs have short, golden brown hair. The background is dappled reddish-orange rock with no vegetation
Getty image photo of a maned wolf - side view of a canid (dog, wolf and fox family) with a luxurious red coat, a black strip down it's back, long stilt-like black legs and a lush tail with white fur. It's in an alert posture where it is looking at the camera with ears pointed.
A field of dried grass with a walking trail in the middle. The trail in the pic, approximately 2m wide by 4m long, is wider than the trail out of view. The trail is TEAMING with tens of thousands of ants that will bite the shit out of you if you walk into it or near the edge. The ants are very good at their jobs!
Photo of cubed wombat poo on the ground with a gray size 10 (US) woman’s shoe for scale
Selfie of two 40 year old white ladies wearing sunglasses with joyous expressions on their faces. They’ve known each other since they were 15 years old and love each other so much, which is apparent in their faces.
A selfie of a sunburnt white lady with gray-brown hair (me!). She has a goofy OMG expression of joy on her face while pointing at the opening of a large wombat burrow approx 2 feet in diameter at Cradle Mountain National Park, Tasmania. The burrow opening is dark and surrounded by bright green moss
Screenshot from Twitter that says “your account is deactivated. Sorry to see you go #GoodBye” with a white bubble to click that says “Got it”
Selfie outside Twede’s Cafe, location of the RR Diner from the tv show Twin Peaks, with the cafe sign above my head. The sign has two red neon signs of a big T and RR atop a yellow and white striped sign with the word cafe in cursive writing.
Screenshot from an Echo Meter bat detector showing recording and species identifications organized by time. Species are named by a six letter code, the first three letters of the genus and first three letters of the species name. Last bat of 2024 “NYCFEM” was detected on December 31, 2024 at 23:50:13. First bat of 2025, “EUMPER” detected on January 1, 2025 at 01:36:06
Black bear walking up a road in a forested setting passing a red sign with white lettering that says ‘Wrong Way’
Photo of a big loamy mole mound surrounded by wet green grass. A ‘gopher hawk’ brand trap is set in the middle of the mound
Photo of a white female scientist crouching down on a log on the edge of Meta Lake at Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument. There is a patch of green grass growing from the sun bleached log which is bare of bark behind the scientist. She is reaching her hand into the still water and there’s a round ripple around her hand. She is wearing dark long pants, brown leather hiking boots, a light blue t-shirt and a white cap. A modestly forested hillside is reflected in the water behind her.