Erica Fischer

NONE in Life science?! NONE?!

Happy to pass the chapter along, if you want it!

I think this is the sampling bias + roads paper I was thinking of: nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Some folks did do a thing comparing locality data to road maps and essentially proved that roads horribly bias occurrence data, but I'm blanking on the name of the paper.

I did localities + letter writers' addresses for specimens and letters at NHM London, but it needs editing from a PhD chapter 😅

scan of a color book plate, illustration of an insect vivarium, shallow water bottom with aquatic vegetation and dry soil with flowers behind, housing several species of insects in various life stages including butterflies, moths, dragonflies, and beetles visible inside

“THE VIVARIUM; OR, INSECT-HOME.
FOR OBSERVING THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF BUTTERFLIES, MOTHS, AND OTHER INSECTS.”
Plate I in _The butterfly vivarium; or, Insect home_ by Henry Noel Humphreys (London, 1858)
via BHL:
www.flickr.com/photos/biodi...

Two paper-cut butterflies pinned to the wall of the exhibition room. Above is the Adonis blue (Lysandea bellargus, dorsal view) and below is the Spanish greenish Black-tip (Euchloe bazae, ventral view).

General view of one of the exhibition walls. The density of pinned specimens intends to create a vertical gradient. The bottom represents the past few decades and baseline abundance, while the top represents the recent decrease in their population.

A detailed view of one of the room's columns. There are paper replicas in many different colours and sizes. They all depict emblematic or endangered species of moths (such as Graellsia isabellae) and butterflies (such as Parnassius apollo).

A first-person view of one of the exhibition's pieces: a container housing together host plants of certain species of Lepidoptera.

'En extinción. Lepidoptera', by Toya Legido, starts tomorrow at RJB-CSIC.

It features more than 4,000 paper-cut butterflies belonging to 50 species, representing their own decline ✂️🦋

Butterflies once again bridge the gap between #science 🧪 and #art 🎨!

Oh look! Me and @nhcooper123.bsky.social have done a podcast!

For each episode we scour the @nhm-london.bsky.social's collections for weird and fun specimens that fit the theme, and then ramble to each other about them.

So if that's your bag, give it a listen! 🎉

USGS Bee Lab at the Eastern Ecological Science Center The USGS Bee Lab supports research on native bees. As part of that program we and our co-located USFWS partners develop identification tools and keys for native bee species, take public access hi reso...

The legendary USGS Bee Lab is being shut down. The 2026 budget proposal defunds the Ecosystem Mission Area, which supported the lab. If their science helped your work, there’s still time to make your voice heard. Read below. (1/4)
🧪 #pollinators #Pollinators #USGS #Entomology #Hymenoptera 🪲🪳

A quick and typed-on-my-phone-riddled-with-typos thread about why I think people need to support NPR/PBS, even though they did post that one interview you didn't like:

Butterfly heist 70 years ago is still causing flutter Braby has spent thirty-odd years researching butterflies and moths, so when alarm bells start ringing follows up

When lepidopterist Michael Braby spotted something odd on a rare butterfly specimen, an old case was re-opened: a heist involving Scotland Yard & a forgery that created a flutter throughout the taxonomic world.

cosmosmagazine.com/nature/butterfly-heist-70-years-ago-is-still-causing-flutter/

Just a reminder:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lacks formal education or professional credentials in critical scientific fields such as biology, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, immunology, virology, epidemiology, genetics, pharmacology, or medicine.

We are risking plunging the United States into a dark age of entomology next week. USDA programs are facing massive lay-offs next week and the public should be aware of the impact. If you care about food systems, forests, invasive species, this thread is for you. Read Below: 🧪 #entomology #science

Cultural groups across U.S. told that federal humanities grants are terminated Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

The nicest apology I've ever received! What a lovely moth.

how DARE you accuse me of being a coleopterist? 😆

There's one at Cambridge, too, in the Whipple Museum.

DOGE Has Decimated the Institute of Museum and Library Services DOGE has eliminated the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), placing all its employees on administrative leave.

RIP, Institute of Museum and Library Services. My latest for artnet. news.artnet.com/art-world/do...

the PhD has officially arrived in the post, so this was very well timed on my part!

Stay tuned for the papers that come out of my thesis :)

I should say: the books/bookmarks in the pattern are traditionally pieced. To avoid chopping butterflies and having the books look.....bad.... due to my choice of Very Directional Fabric, I adapted the pattern so I could applique the bookmarks on instead of piecing them in.

Here is the list of institutions:

no worries :)

Book Nook by Pen + Paper Patterns!

I passed back in December, so I've been spending a lot of ime quilting 🥰

Pattern is Book Nook by Pen + Paper Patterns, most of the fabric is Bee Haven by Rachel Rossi for Benartex, and the lovely longarm quilting was done by Tara at Calliope Quilts in Grandville, MI 💜

I did a whole lot of looking at spread butterfly and moth specimens and reading about people who spread them and sorting through correspondence of people who collected them, so.....the quilt is close enough.

You've heard of #knityourphd but what about #quiltyourphd (I can't knit)? :)

Is this a bit of a stretch re: PhD and quilting? Sure! But I’m ignoring the stretch. 😊

Shout out to my students who didn't believe me when I said sometimes exams have to be rescheduled on Saturdays because of weather - I hope you all believe me now :)

Butterfly abundance declines over 20 years of systematic monitoring in Ohio, USA Severe insect declines make headlines, but they are rarely based on systematic monitoring outside of Europe. We estimate the rate of change in total butterfly abundance and the population trends for 8...

Hundreds of volunteers have been counting butterflies weekly across Ohio since 1996, documenting a 2% per year decline in overall abundance journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

AI illustration should have no place in Science journals - did no-one notice the bumblebee has one wing and one antenna? Or perhaps nobody cared.