Post Av5Li9E8NWE84GShe4 by stevegis_ssg@mas.to
(DIR) More posts by stevegis_ssg@mas.to
(DIR) Post #Av4OsnXjRbqihqRGe8 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-06-12T23:50:08Z
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In the US there are about 800 species of trees. That's a lot, but it is manageable. Do you know how many are in the much smaller country of Costa Rica? At least 2,300. And you are much more likely to encounter a variety of trees in one area than in the US. This is also just enough that learning them all is beyond all but "tree people" specifically "Costa Rica tree people"This summer my goal is to learn the US genuses dassit.
(DIR) Post #Av4OxBlHLIIqycrvWa by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-06-12T23:50:54Z
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I was reading a book by an entomologist and he often didn't know what tree he was looking at and I was shaking my head and shaming the man until I looked into it more. That is too many trees.
(DIR) Post #Av4PYOqhe8QAHW9Kls by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-06-12T23:57:38Z
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Also with tropical trees they have all these vines and hangers on and you don't even know if you have found a leaf from the trunk you are interested in. It's really hard to identify a tree in a rainforest apparently. Which means those of us in temperate regions have no excuses for not knowing our local major tree groups.
(DIR) Post #Av4Q0f0XA9ICVMDvKi by stevegis_ssg@mas.to
2025-06-13T00:02:41Z
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@futurebird My favorite tree tidbit is that they’re not a clade, but more like a strategy. A maple is more closely related to parsley than to pine.
(DIR) Post #Av4Q5s8rkysWgjbdfE by MLE_online@social.afront.org
2025-06-13T00:03:38Z
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@futurebird I just learned yesterday that while north america has about 800 species of trees and about 70 species of oaks, western europe has only 51 and three, respectively. Apparently it's because of the ice age.
(DIR) Post #Av4Q75tE81WhcEsDq4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T00:03:48Z
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@stevegis_ssg It's a bit like "army ants" which aren't really a coherent group of ants, but rather all kinds of ants who have arrived at the same "lifestyle choices"
(DIR) Post #Av4Q89kJHDbrrhD26S by gretared@sfba.social
2025-06-13T00:03:50Z
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@futurebird the book Around the World in 80 Trees is great and helped me recognize many local trees because in cities we often have planted trees from all over
(DIR) Post #Av4QeFGgHUKgG4eTCa by Fat_Farang@mastodon.social
2025-06-13T00:09:53Z
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@futurebird Have you ever lived in an area with frackin' kudzu? Even utility poles look like big green trees.
(DIR) Post #Av4QiLJHl7L29hp8We by Okanogen@mastodon.social
2025-06-13T00:10:36Z
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@futurebird @stevegis_ssg Convergent evolution is so fascinating!
(DIR) Post #Av4RrirfeX6JlkwZxw by knwmoon@mastodon.online
2025-06-13T00:23:30Z
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@futurebird Unfortunately, having no excuse is not helping me tell all these giant temperate rainforest evergreens apart either 😬
(DIR) Post #Av4UA89gYsY3KMH8Jk by Bookherd@urbanists.social
2025-06-13T00:49:14Z
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@futurebird All of this is extremely cool!
(DIR) Post #Av4VblnXNXIY3AevRI by KateT@mastodon.nz
2025-06-13T01:05:25Z
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@futurebird wow. In Australia there are at least 800 species of just eucalyptus.
(DIR) Post #Av4XXGd5WKEo8HkhHM by Gorfram@beige.party
2025-06-13T01:27:03Z
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@futurebird Maybe I’ll make a summer goal to learn to identify all the trees visible from my (well-suburbanized & parking lotted-in) balcony.
(DIR) Post #Av4Yf0WBPDxYR1mEq0 by BLTpizza@mastodon.social
2025-06-13T01:39:39Z
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@futurebird Learning your tree barks is the next level so deciduous trees can be identified in the winter. Branch arrangement, alternate or opposite, makes it possible to take an educated guess what you are looking at from a distance. Mushroom hunters have to know the trees to find what they are looking for as well. Then you can start to understand why this tree and mushroom grow where they do. What is their place in the biome they inhabit. Who depends on which tree will be next.
(DIR) Post #Av4dFHJqohYsmgYl4y by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T02:31:01Z
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@futurebird I used to have a field guide to trees of north america. It was thicker than any of those wheel of time novels, and considerably more interesting. I never set out to learn them all, though; I only wanted to be able to find a few in the book. No idea what happened to the book.
(DIR) Post #Av4eQLxA1meWIPn7Gy by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T02:44:16Z
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@futurebird @stevegis_ssg it is, but in many species that can be trees, there's also some individual variation possible; on the mountainside near me there are an awful lot of oaks (Quercus gambelii, probably), but they are seldom more than 2 meters tall and often look more a bush or a shrub than a tree. But under the right conditions they can reach 20 meters tall. So whether they're a bush or a tree depends on local conditions.
(DIR) Post #Av4hMCS9hsG7XJ03o8 by BLTpizza@mastodon.social
2025-06-13T03:17:05Z
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@futurebird you got this 🙂
(DIR) Post #Av5Li9E8NWE84GShe4 by stevegis_ssg@mas.to
2025-06-13T02:48:32Z
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@llewelly @futurebird You know, I considered "behavior" for my post and went for "strategy" instead but maybe I was right the first time.
(DIR) Post #Av5LiA1PQJdsX5W3Rw by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T10:46:59Z
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@stevegis_ssg @futurebird I think either is ok?I'm not a botanist, but the terminology that botanists use is "habit". An oak or a maple may have either a tree habit or a bush habit depending on local environmental conditions.
(DIR) Post #Av5LiAv45OA5JhYVCS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T10:49:13Z
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@llewelly @stevegis_ssg The term used in myrmecology for the "army ant lifestyle" is "Army Ant Syndrome"Which I find needlessly judgemental. It makes it sound like they are sick and need to be cured to be normal ants again. Although, the prospect of not having a house and just running around in a big horde raiding and living it up sometimes sounds appealing. Can people get "army ant syndrome?"
(DIR) Post #Av5MEB25CUdKw067aS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T10:55:05Z
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@llewelly @stevegis_ssg What "Army Ant Syndrome" is really about is a group of small animals deciding to collectively play the role of a small roaming predator of a much larger size such as a badger, small cat or lizard. They roam, they catch food, they sleep in the hollow of a tree, they have a mass equivalent to a house-cat and eat similar food to animals of similar mass. But they are ... multiple. It's wonderful!
(DIR) Post #Av5MUlStVstqYqY36G by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T10:58:04Z
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@futurebird @stevegis_ssg "habit" isn't perfect (in common parlance it's too close to "addiction", ugh), but I guess it's better than "syndrome" .I have this vague memory that at some point in past decades, Paul Martin or one of his following made an analogy between late Pleistocene human bands and army ants in the context of their "they killed everything in their path" hypothesis for the end Pleistocene megafauna extinctions. But Paul Martin had what I feel was a rather extreme view.
(DIR) Post #Av5Oq5B1cWBrgZU09I by sinvega@mas.to
2025-06-13T11:24:18Z
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@futurebird @llewelly @stevegis_ssg even "army ant" feels like a misnomer. They seem to self-direct, it feels like it has more in common with anarchy than the heirarchy an army implies
(DIR) Post #Av5PxonSVMaJ9diEjo by peachfront@toot.community
2025-06-13T11:36:50Z
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@futurebird plus some vines etc are mimics that resemble other plants & even animals> some can even change their appearanceif you read The Light Bringers by Zoe Schlanger (maybe you are even the one who recommended it here?) there is a rather terrifying chapter at how quickly certain species can transform their foliage to look like another depending on environmentso even tho it seems like there are far fewer species of plants to learn than insects... it gets SUPER hard
(DIR) Post #Av5QcrewlYyDuEIsIy by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T11:41:56Z
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@BLTpizza @futurebird teacher: "now, dear student, you will learn how to identify trees by their bark "student: "but teacher, so often I see different kinds of bark on the same tree! "teacher: "relax! we will begin with the easy trees, which seldom have more than four different kinds of bark on the same tree."
(DIR) Post #Av5TUmsqwDWMdkeEy0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-06-13T12:16:31Z
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@sinvega @llewelly @stevegis_ssg I think "Bacchae Ants" would be more fitting.
(DIR) Post #Av5W9tF6OtN28vmXlA by Rana@mastodon.nl
2025-06-13T12:46:15Z
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@futurebird I wish you luck with that 🫡
(DIR) Post #Av5ioN4A8ST5fkjaM4 by econads@mendeddrum.org
2025-06-13T15:08:04Z
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@futurebird @llewelly @stevegis_ssg I think that's Vikings