Jess Marsh

Did you know that there are huge caves full of weirdy bugs and ancient life right under the Nullarbor desert? | First Dog on the Moon We simply don’t know even a fraction of what is in them

Hugely excited for our work on the Nullarbor Caves to be featured on the ever excellent First Dog on the Moon. Oh yeah...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I’ll send you across some sneak previews 😁

So much fun 😁

A woman (me!!) in dusty overalls standing next to the entrance of a cave, wearing a green helmet, a harness and gear for rope work.

Just back from surveys of #caves of the Nullarbor, Western Australia, land of the Mirning People.

🖤 amazing caves
🕷️ amazing cave #invertebrates
✨ hugely exciting finds

The best start to my ARC Industry Fellowship.

👀 Watch. This. Space 👀
#biodiversity #conservation #ozinverts

📸 Dr Steve Milner

A vast treeless landscape, with a small, limestone outcrop in the centre, containing the entrance to a large cave

A brief peak at my home for the last three weeks. Surveying cave-adapted invertebrates of the beautiful and rugged caves of the Nullarbor plain, Western Australia. Some REALLY exciting finds. Stand by for updates #caves #invertebrates #troglobites #spiders #biodiversity

Sand grains as big as her head ❤️

Tiny bright red stubby wasp with tiny wing stubs and big grey eyes with false pupils peering. She has thick red antennae with white tips, and she taps them on the ground rapidly as she runs.

It's officially spring up here because there are tiny Metaphycus nugget wasps in the savannah grasses again and I am happy 🥹
#EmotionalSupportWasps

Worm-like creature with ‘dark secret’ wins New Zealand bug of the year Velvet worms have rows of pudgy legs, skin speckled like a galaxy and dissolve their prey with sticky goo An ancient gummy-looking worm-like creature with a vicious hunting method that involves projecting sticky goo from its head has been crowned New…

Worm-like creature with ‘dark secret’ wins New Zealand bug of the year

A very pig butt looking round marble like animal that is pink. Photo by MBARI.

The “front” of a pig butt worm showing tentacles and a round body. Image by MBARI.

The bottom of a pig butt worm showing it’s odd bilateral butt cheeks. Images by MBARI

Scientists first collected a pig butt worm from the dark ocean depths near Monterey, California. The size of marbles, pigbutts are a near complete mystery. Officially described in 2007, scientists aren’t even sure if the pigbutt form is an adult, or just a very very awkward adolescent stage.

Nominate your invertebrate species of the year We’re asking readers from around the world to nominate their favourite spineless species for our second Invertebrate of the Year competition

Invertebrate species of the year, for the WHOLE world 🌍

… I know which species I’d choose. It has the name, it has the looks, it has the on-the-brink-of-extinction need for awareness…

(Come on little #kangarooIslandAssassinSpider 🕷️💪)

I’m betraying my arachnological roots and am on team giant springtail (insert Collembola emoji here)

This is another very cool invertebrate

#biodiversity #insects

Small bronze-y jumping spider boy on a palmetto frond, with markings like angry eyebrows (more of a unibrow on this little guy), peering up at you shyly

Anthony Davis spood
(Mr Angry UniBrow)

A photograph of a giant springtail viewed from above, crawling on a NZ one dollar coin. The springtail is blue with yellow spines, and in length is only about half the width of the coin.

🚨BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!🚨

I know everything is a lot right now, but this is the LAST WEEK of Bug of the Year, and team velvet worm are hot on our heels!

Please VOTE NOW to make Giant Springtails victorious!

bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-here-20...

IF WE WIN, I WILL GET A GIANT SPRINGTAIL TATTOO!!

a pale, elegant long-legged spider, with whispy silk, under a stone

welcome to the world new spider genus Siskiyu. you've been lurking in the dark, magical woods of far northern California for millenia. Now the humans have finally gotten around to telling your story, at least in part

this research was funded by the NSF

OA here

zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1402...

A photo looking down at a colorful snake coiled up atop a palm-like plant frond. The snake is coiled in the upper third of the frame in a flat circle, and has a bright orange dorsal stripe and white side stripes against a glossy dark brown background. The snake's curled shape contrasts with the straight central rib of the plant (running diagonally up from the lower left) and its also-straight, perpendicular frond branches.

One more for the Year of the Snake, plus #TBT. It's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken, from ten years ago in Borneo, a gorgeous little snake called an eight-striped kukri (Oligodon octolineatus). I have a large print of it on my home office wall and it makes me happy to see every day. 🐙 📷 🐍

Very cool!

A photo of what at first looks like a pile of dead brown leaves, but upon closer inspection is a pile of dead brown leaves and a grasshopper that is astonishingly camouflaged as a dead brown leaf. Its body is flattened with a crest to create the leaf shape; the end of the wings even has a projection that looks like the leaf stem. The abdomen tip curls up to meet it to help the deception. The grasshopper has markings that look like leaf veins, and a couple of what look like rotted holes in a leaf, but which are actually clear spots in the exoskeleton to create this illusion.

One more from my Borneo archives, because frankly, living in the past seems like a good idea right now. See the grasshopper? Look for the "holes" in the leaf - they're actually solid but transparent exoskeleton. I've shared this before elsewhere, but I don't think here. Even if, worth a re-post. 🐙🌿📷

A map showing the extent of fire in the Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia. Most of the park is marked in yellow and red colouring, indicating it has burnt, or is at risk from burning.

The Grampians National Park is an important area for biodiversity. And it is burning.

Many species have been impacted, but some species have had their whole know range burnt. The Grampians Assassin Spider, Zephyrarchaea grayi is one of these.

Extinct? Possibly.

#biodiversity #arachnids #fire

Also, “looking like a burnt marshmallow” is such a brilliant way of describing the little animal. Exactly that.

Beautiful

A spindly legged white assassin bug nymph emerges from a brown egg case on a green leaf.

When you’re willing to move slowly through the world, you’ll find amazing things. I call this Birth of an Assassin. #bugsky

Kangaroo Island Assassin Spider Australian poems by Australian poets are at the heart of Red Room Poetry an organisation devoted to creating, publishing and promoting the reading and writing of great new work.

Unknown to me, a school student chose to write a poem on one of the species that I have fought to conserve.

Convincing people that spiders are worthy of conservation often feels an uphill battle.

This feels a little bit like a win 🥹💙

#australia #arachnids #biodiversity #poetry

Small green sawfly larvae chews large squiggly hole in green leaf.

Little bug. Big munch.

A macro photo of a small mite, facing right. The body color is light grey. Its front pair of legs are elongate and pointing forward like antennae. It is walking on a rock.

Opilioacarida! Mites that kind of look like Opiliones (hence the name). Found all over tropical and subtropical habitats worldwide, poorly studied. These were the first I've ever seen alive! From south of La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. This is Neocarus bajacalifornicus.

The beauty of spider webs and water droplets

A photo of a giant springtail, and invertebrate with a soft blue body and lots of yellow spines on its back.

Do you need a New Year’s resolution that’s quick, free, easy to achieve and makes a difference?

Then I’ve got one for you! Vote for Holacanthella in the Bug of the Year contest! You can vote from anywhere in the world, just follow this link! 🧪 #Invertebrate

bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-here-20...

Prokoenenia wheeleri, a micro-whipscorpion in the rarely seen arachnid order Palpigradi. Travis County, Texas

#nature #photography #arachnids #invertebrates

Seems we have enough Australian Entomology / other insect people to start a starter pack. Who have I missed?
go.bsky.app/8d9RtMC