Anurag Agrawal

Oak Galls Exhibit Ant Dispersal Convergentwith Myrmecochorous Seeds

par.nsf.gov/servlets/pur...

Earlier on the expedition we found the most beautiful flower, and here, my friends, is the biggest: Rafflesia arnoldi seen in full bloom today in the Sumatran jungle. This is the largest flower on earth and one of the greatest wonders of the natural world.

We Can Now Track Individual Monarch Butterflies. It’s a Revelation.

#Monarch #butterfly tagging advances in the NY Times, they are arriving in #Mexico

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/s...

The 3 guys in 2006 and 2025

A mentor, Spencer Barrett, and mentee, Marc Johnson - 20 years apart

A patch of bright red fungi that look like clawed-hands reaching out of the ground.

Part of a large patch of Devil's Fingers fungus (aka Octopus Stinkhorn) in Rye, East Sussex. I smelt them before I saw them. An intense bouquet of rotting flesh to attract insects that then help spread spores. Brilliant!
@sussexwildlife.bsky.social
#fungi
#mycology
#UKwildlife

AGRAWAL | A Theory of Life The Cornell Daily Sun - Independent Since 1880.

A theory of life: www.cornellsun.com/article/2025...

A collection of 15 wooly bear caterpillars, orange and black, all curled up

The wooly bear, or #Isabella tiger #moth #caterpillar, Pyrrharctia isabella, still looking for overwintering spots on warm days. I'm still collecting them for research. Many years ago I became allergic to the hairs, a painful reminder of my love gone sour: agrawal.eeb.cornell.edu/2018/11/24/c...

T-shirt design with monarch butterflies and Statue of Liberty

By popular demand, I'm offering "More #MONARCHS - No #Monarchy!" shirts and mugs at cost (no profit, just joy). Spread the word, decent quality for <$20

monarchs.printful.me

#NoKings #butterfly #peace #naturalhistory #plantinsect

🕷️ Britain’s craziest creature? Meet Megabunus diadema — a harvestman with eyes on a spiky turret! Not a spider, but part of its own Order: Opiliones.

Learn more in our UK Harvestmen webinar on 5 Feb 2026:

🔗 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1720584467...

@britishspiders.bsky.social @megabunus.bsky.social

Older White man standing behind a chair, and a table featuring four of my book titles. A large poster representing the cover of my newest book, Bugwatching: The Art, Joy, and Importance of Observing Insects, is on the floor to the right of the table. All of this is inside a public library.

I am an author being overwhelmed by emails from people offering their services to promote my new book. This is a brand new problem, and I do not have an agent or publicist to sift through the offers. Help? #writingcommunity #authors

I have tasted them too... I cannot tell if it is Taxus canadensis, but maybe? Plants are dioceous, deer prefer males. The genus is the source of taxol, a compound used in chemotherapy, which targets tubulin (cell division)

Red oak fall colors

Witch hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, Hamamelidaceae in the Saxifragales, now in #flower around #Ithaca

The maple leaf #Viburnum, when not eaten by deer #ithaca #fruit #naturalhistory

My monkey slug getting ready to transform to hag moth, Phobetron pithecium Limacodidae

Pear rust's spore-dispersing bodies... This #fungus, Gymnosporangium sabinae, is an obligate host - alternating #parasite (like many fungi and aphids) - alternate host = juniper

Science Magazine - Defensive fungal symbiosis on insect hindlegs Tympanal organs have repeatedly evolved in diverse insects and were thought to be required for auditory perception (1).

New biology: stink bugs inoculate their eggs with a fungus that protects them from parasitoids

www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagaz...

Photo of green and leafy herbaceous plant bearing narrow leaves and yellow, tubular flowers. Photo by Scott Zona CCBYNC2.

Melampyrum pratense has a huge distribution across Europe to central Siberia thanks to ants. It has myrmecochorus seeds—seeds carried by ants—unlike most holo- and hemiparasitic species, which have wind-dispersed seeds. #parasite #Orobanchaceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Woody plants!

Monkey slug caterpillar, or "hag #moth" Phobetron pithecium. A late season Limacodidae of eastern forests, A generalized feeder of mostly blue plants

Courtesy of Sam Jaffe and the amazing #caterpillar lab in New Hampshire!

www.thecaterpillarlab.org

Matelea cyclophylla, a vining succulent #milkweed vine with a corky #caudex from western Mexico, hairy burgundy #flowers

Two more Asclepiadoideae (among 3000 #milkweed species), a Hoya and Cynanchum - every thing comes in fives #flower #oldworld

Southern Africa

Hoodia and Huernia, two Ascleps flowering in my house

Two pairs of wild turkeys in Cambridge, Mass

AGRAWAL | Why I Tried Whale Meat Professor Anurag Agrawal writes about the history and biological context that led to his first time trying whale meat.

Why I tried whale meat

www.cornellsun.com/article/2025...

Echinopsis tubiflora an Argentinian endemic Cactaceae, night blooming, open <18 hours (120x = 2 hours) #timelapse #cactus #flower #sweetsmell

Scaldweed, Cuscuta gronovii, a native annual non-photosynthetic #parasitic #plant - haustoria instead of roots; shares #herbivores with its host plants (you are what you eat) - but a #flowering plant nonetheless. Most plant communities have several distantly related species of parasitic angiosperms

Temnothorax sp., a small #ant that lives in colony in acorns (and in #galls formed on #oaks

Galling #aphids on staghorn sumac make plump succulent galls full of aphids and predators - near Watertown, NY