45
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I am trying to identify this bone I found on the beach at the Delaware Bay in Delaware. It is 2 1/2 inches wide and 1 1/2 tall
It's a pharyngeal tooth from a large fish like a drum or a parrot fish.
The pharyngeal jaws are for grinding and also contain a pharyngeal mill, where larger and smaller teeth grind coarser and finer ...
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43
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Are these microscopic star-like structures on a dead leaf some sort of organism? If so, which one?
These are stellate ("star-shaped") [and possibly peltate ("borne on a stalk")] hairs ("trichomes") of the leaf itself.
From Harris & Harris's (2001) ""...
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26
votes
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Identify blue/translucent jelly-like animal on beach
By-the-wind sailors
This appears to be Velella (a monospecific genus), commonly referred to as by-the-wind sailor.
More specifically, this is Velella velella, and is also less commonly referred to ...
- 29.7k
21
votes
Large grey bird at creek mouth (east of Toronto)
I'm highly confident that this is a cormorant. I'm less certain of the species, but based on the location I would bet that it is a double-crested cormorant (perhaps a juvenile based on the head color/...
- 44k
12
votes
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Identification of these birds
This is very likely the great tit (Parvus major).
Photo by Walter Baxter.
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12
votes
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What is this insect (or spider)?
This is a true bug larvae - thus, an insect - you correctly counted six legs :)
Characteristics of true bug larvae are the combination of the rostrum, the wing pockets and the dorsal scent glands (...
- 812
12
votes
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Dark, long-legged spider with long mouthparts in front, long "pincers" in the back and very short 3rd pair of legs (northern Taiwan)
From a browse through iNaturalist, I believe this is a member of the genus Hersilia also known as long-spinneretted bark spiders or two-tailed spiders. I have no idea which of the species this might ...
- 11.2k
10
votes
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Tiny insect identification in potted plants
These are a type of hexapod called springtails (Collembola).
Common Soil springtails. Source: UMN Extension
Springtails vary in size, shape, and color, but most are < 6 mm long (as low as ~1 mm) ...
- 29.7k
8
votes
What are these semi transparent pill-shaped things in the Mediterranean Sea?
Quick guess based on your low-quality photo:
Reminds me of a pyrosome, a tube/rod-shaped, free floating colonial tunicate.
According to here, Pyrosoma atlanticum is the only species found in the ...
- 29.7k
8
votes
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Very small, light and dark "insects" - Italy - Infestation, healthy problems? - Insect identification
I suspect these will be bird mites. These are a range of species from two genera (Ornithonyssus and Dermanyssus) that mainly infest birds, but can also cause infestations in humans, causing a ...
- 11.2k
7
votes
Leaf pictures: Which disease?
It looks like a scale insect to me, similar to Citricola scale but lighter in color. It might be a Soft Brown Scale, but they usually appear multiple generations at a time, so you'd see all sizes from ...
- 24.7k
6
votes
What kind of insect is this? It looks like a huge spider with one long antenna and six legs
While not completely sure, it definitely looks like an Arachnid. Upon further research, I have narrowed it down to either Amblypygi (i.e., whips spiders, tailless whip scorpions), or Solifugae (i.e., ...
- 199
6
votes
Skull of which animal ist it?
This will be one of the two-toed ungulate mammals (Artiodactyls), I think one of the smaller ones, probably in the family Bovidae, which includes the antelopes and goats as well as cows and sheep.
...
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5
votes
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What is this large insect?
For a full answer we would need to have further pictures of the back of the insect. However, NZ has few insects of that size range that are at all common, so I suspect that what you have here is a ...
- 11.2k
5
votes
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What kind of spider is it and was this web built beforehand? (Surprise find)
The pictures don't show the eyes, but from the shape of the cephalothorax, this is a jumping spider. Large ones are about 1 cm long, so unless that moth is huge, the size range fits. Here's a user-...
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5
votes
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Identify this ladybug-like insect, with yellow eyes and cream spots
I think (without any expertise in this area, so take with a grain of salt), that this is a beetle in the genus Clinteria. This is a genus of beetles found in Asia and are relatively common.
...
- 11.2k
4
votes
Identification of black-and-white striped jumping insect?
Due to the
chewing mouthparts,
the greatly developed femurs specifically adapted for jumping (what fits well with the OP's observation of jumping behaviour),
prominent compound eyes and
long, ...
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4
votes
Mystery bug photographed in Brasil
From this photo (beautiful shot, btw!) you can see that it must be a true bug - admittedly, the diagnostic characteristics are hard to spot, but I will try to walk you there.
Most apparently, we see ...
- 812
4
votes
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Biological Key for Yard Weeds?
Firstly, I would recommend searching the following on your browser: 'plant species identification gov'.
Also here are some resources that you might find helpful: you can search for a common list of ...
- 139
4
votes
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What species is this white thin shell? Santa Cruz, California
They are definitely sea urchins, specifically a type of sand dollar called the Eccentric Sand Dollar, which is found all along the Pacific coast of of the US. Here's what they look like when they're ...
- 24.7k
4
votes
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Help identify parasitic plant on oak seedling
I think these are galls produced by a wasp in the genus Andricus.
Here are some produced by A. polyceras:
However, there are many species in this genus so more detail would be needed to narrow it ...
- 2,298
4
votes
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Identify a spider which is consuming a fly
This is something in the Thomisoidea family (Crab and Running Crab spider superfamily).
You can review the community-observed species of crab and running crab spiders in Czechia here: https://www....
- 1,856
4
votes
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What species is this insect?
This is a weevil, a beetle in the superfamily Curculionoidea. Most weevils are easily identified by the usually-present elongated snout (or rostrum [Davis (2017)] )
There a number of common home-...
- 29.7k
4
votes
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I’ve been searching the internet for days and I can’t seem to find out what insect this is, can anyone help?
Counting the legs (4 on each side, so 8 in total), it must be a spider. According to the compact body shape and the relatively large "head" (prosoma), I guess it must be a jumping spider (...
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4
votes
Unknown insect in southern Kansas
This is a male Metric Paper Wasp (Polistes metricus).
Bugguide is an an authoritative source for arthropods in North America and describes these as:
Very dark--abdomen is black... thorax dark reddish-...
- 1,856
4
votes
What bird species were featured on this album?
There are two species of bird shown in the illustration. The one on the left is Eupetomena macroura, the swallow-tailed hummingbird. This bird lives in eastern South America, primarily Brazil.
The ...
- 9,024
3
votes
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Identify this insect in Texas
The thorax is all wrong for a juvenile cockroach as others have suggested. (A cockroach would have an enlarged prothorax covering the head, as well as plate-like meso-and meto-thoraxes). Also, the ...
- 29.7k
3
votes
Help to identify a odd skull
Very hard to say from the shape it is in.
Some observations:
The molars suggest it's a herbivore, the teeth look similar to what I know from the skulls of sheep/goats/roe/deer/...
Seems to have no ...
- 139
3
votes
ID Large brown/grey spider with light stripe along back
Looks like a wolf spider.
(though I can't see the eyes to definitively rule out a fishing spider; though, fishing spiders don't as often have a bright streak long their backs -- a characteristic your ...
- 29.7k
3
votes
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Identification by tail feather
I believe this is a tail feather (or retrix) from an adult male eastern whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus). See right image below (click to zoom):
.
Source: USFWS Forensics Laboratory
Details:
...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible