Andrew Trundlewagon's photos

Water avens, or purple avens, ( Geum rivale ), Benoîte des ruisseaux, wildflowers growing at the side of a small lake, St Bruno, near Montreal.

Basically a weed in the corner of the garden. Bright yellow celandine.

I believe that dandelions are representatives of an alien life-form, indestructible by all normal means and intent on taking over the planet.

Wild columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis, Ancolie du canada). Spring wildflowers, they seem to prefer to grow on barren rock faces in the woods which can make them hard to get close to. These, however, were growing on a rock next to a picnic area and at just above eye level, so for once were cooperative! (St Bruno, near Montreal).

Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum, Arisème petit-prêcheur) grows on the forest floor. It's hood (spathe) encloses a rod (spadix) which carries flowers hidden from sight within the folds of the spathe. Initially the young flowers are male but later it carries female flowers so it changes gender several times in its life. Most of its closest relatives are from South East Asia, with only two species in North America. St. Bruno near Montreal.

Spring Beauty ( Claytonia caroliniana ; Claytonie feuille-large) is a small white ephemeral flower of the forest floor that emerges early in the spring. Seen in St. Bruno Parc, Near Montreal, Quebec.

A spring flower of the forest floor, Dutchman's breeches ( Dicentra cucullaria , Dicentre à capuchin). It is pollenated by bumble bees which are the only insects that can force open the petals . Seen in Parc St Bruno near Montreal.

A young white tailed deer, the snow has melted but not much is growing and food is scarce. (Cerf de virginie)

The Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) also called Camberwell Beauty in UK. It is one of the first butterflies we see after the snow melts in spring, as it hibernates over winter. (Le Morio).

Hepatica americana; the flowers shoot straight out before the leaves, one of the earliest spring flowers in the woods.

A twig of rosemary (image made on a scanner)

The experiment. "And there was light".

Green for GO; red for STOP. Filters from very old lab equipment, imaged using a flatbed scanner with filters illuminated from behind.

She's got her eyes on you. A Phidippus audax jumping spider.

An orange peeled.

An orange (satsuma) and a leaf.

A fossil of a scorpion (actually the shed exoskeleton of a scorpion, Eramoscorpius brucensis ); 430 million years old, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. It is thought that this early scorpion lived in water, but came up on shore to molt, where it would have been safe from marine predators. The legs are adapted to support the animals weight out of the water, but the rest of the animal has features that are shared by early scorpions that lived in water. So this is an extraordinary fossil, representing the evolutionary border line between marine scorpions (now no longer to be found) and the more familiar land dwelling animals that we are familiar with. www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/rom-research-reveals-spectacular-430-million-year-old-ontario

A fossilized katydid, 150 million years old. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.