Macroinvertebrate Blitz Feb 24th at TRAC!
Wanted to let y'all know about a program happening at Trinity River Audubon Center on February 24th at 10:30am to iNat as many aquatic macroinvertebrates as we can!
I've noticed that despite us looking at macros all the time with students on field trips, there's a pretty low number of inat observations of these lil guys in our area! So this is a great chance to get in on the fun and hopefully do a little bit more serious ID work. It can be difficult to get to species level on most of these, but I'm hoping with some good pics (we'll have some microscopes, and if you have a macro lens bring it!) and the help of some specialists on here we can knock out a few, and definitely get to genus on more!
I think it'll be a great time, if you know anyone who you think would have fun or who might be able to help with IDs please tag/invite them to come out!
You can sign up to attend here: https://trinityriver.audubon.org/events/aquatic-bioblitz
@acjci @annikaml @sambiology @baxter-slye @wildcarrot @cgritz @kimberlietx @sam_moore_ @assmann @peywey @keep-tx-wild @scarletskylight @aidancampos @tadamcochran @galactic_bug_man @brentano @jimenavivanco @nancylovesbugs @devinpedraza @isaaceastland
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@inhat83, @karen762 FYI
I'd love to make this but will be out of town that day. Thanks for adding me and please include me on the next one!
Sounds like fun! I plan on being there. I’ll even drag along @isaaceastland :)
Heck yeah @devinpedraza can't wait!
Count me in!!!! It’s bioblitz time 😎
I just signed up!!! :)
I'm excited!!!
Def. want to find a Hydra:
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/insects-invertebrates/what-is-a-hydra
@nathanmayflower Great news and thanks for helping to host / promote this event. Marking my calendar in case I can make it out!
Carol Garrison is leading a Zoom talk about macro invertebrates with the Spring Creek Forest Preserve on February 6 -- thought I'd post the info here in case folks would enjoy a crash course in advance before getting 'in the field'!
https://springcreekforest.org/event/monthly-speaker-series-2024-02-06/
@ornithoptor tagging you too!
@scarletskylight Thank you for plugging Carol's talk! I'm definitely gonna do my best to catch that!!!
@sambiology Ooh that would be sick, fingers crossed!
@sambiology I'm counting on this Hydra and also maybe some tardigrades will come your way soon ;-)
@laurahaynes Here's a cool event coming up!
Plan on coming.
Thank you for the invite but unfortunately will be working that day. Good luck!
@scarletskylight Thanks for the tag! I will try to make it!
Hey @nathanmay -- is the registration not working any more? I tried clicking on the registration, clicked on register here, and then I get the alert that "Sorry, tickets are not available for this event."
Hopefully folks can still come!
How many people do you have wanting to come? We are at (a little bit past!) capacity for our wetlab, but several people are telling me they still want to come, so I'm considering moving it to a larger room to accommodate demand if it's there!
Gotcha! No worries -- I didn't know there was a cap! No cap, Nathan. ;)
I just heard from one person, but I don't know how hard it was advertised to the new NTMN class.
That's AWESOME that you're filling up the rooms, Nathan!!! Way to go! :)
It was looking like it might be cramped either way so I moved it to the larger room! They should be able to sign up now! :)
I just tried signing up and got the "sorry there are no tickets available for this event" message. I'll be there regardless as I expect to spend most of my time outside in the mud anyway.
It still says there are no tickets for this event. Is the event capped after upgrading?
Yeah we hit capacity again pretty quickly! I guess there's an itching for this sort of thing, which I'm excited about! If it goes well I'll definitely try to do more.
Nathan! Dude, what a successful program, and it's not even started yet! I'll bring some extra gear, so hopefully a couple more folks would be able to join us. I can even watch from outside the room. :)
An AWESOME morning this was, @nathanmay -- way to go!!! I know lots of folks will still be uploading stuff, but so far, some really neat and interesting critters were documented at TRAC today:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2024-02-24&place_id=96542
Looking forward to the next bioblitz/biosurvey at TRAC. :)
Neat observations!
Agree, I'm having a great time just looking at them even though I wasn't able to make it. Great work on putting together a successful event, @nathanmayflower!
Wanted to give another thank you and follow-up to those who came out for this blitz!! Much to my delight, TRAC is now past 800 research grade species! And, also exciting, we got an ID back on the scud specimens we sent in!
They're the Northern River Crangonyctid, an amphipod with a very large range that is typical of the Southeastern US West of the Mississippi. Big thanks to Andrew Cannizzaro for IDing these critters!
Here's one of the specimens if anybody wants to see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/200444541
I had lots of fun this day, hope y'all did too!
Awesome awesome awesome! Have you had the chance to glance through all of the amphipods observed this day?
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2024-02-24&place_id=96542&taxon_id=47628
Are they all the same species (northern river crangonyctid)?
Again, great job, Nathan. I'm already looking forward to your next gathering/bioblitz!
Looks like it to me, but I think he had to dissect to be sure. I sent in 8 specimens and he said he was felt confident that 7 out of 8 were the Northern River Crangonyctid. There's one that he said looked a little off, so he's waiting until they've gotten barcoding data to confirm. I don't know anything about sequencing or barcode data but I'm excited to find out what he learns!
We've got fun stuff every month! On March 30th we're blitzing a section of the center that we've juuust started prairie restoration on! https://trinityriver.audubon.org/events/prairie-bioblitz
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