Priyantha Wijesinghe

Gall of the week is caused by the cynipid wasp Cynips longiventris f. agamic on oaks, Quercus spp.
Photo by Peter Shirley

YouTube video by iNaturalist Scaling identification expertise: Exploring ways to learn from the iNaturalist community

RECORDING: Scaling Identification Expertise Webinar @inaturalist.bsky.social
youtu.be/YYflkC2CM-Q?...

Moss Safari by @mosssafari.bsky.social . Got it out of @laguardiacc.bsky.social Library the other day but I need to return it as a couple of friends are waiting to borrow it after me.

Gymnobisium inukshuk, a troglobitic species of pseudoscorpion, photographed by Gonzalo Giribet. The scorpion has brown thin pedipalps and a beige shiny abdomen. A caption invites us to read a new collection in Invertebrate Systematics titled '1000 new species—a lifelong dedication to biodiversity discovery', which is free to read until May 2026.

Mark Harvey's work has been profiled in a new Invertebrate Systematics collection, '1000 new species—a lifelong dedication to biodiversity discovery'.

connectsci.au/collection/2...

Photo: Gymnobisium inukshuk, a troglobitic pseudoscorpion species described by Mark.

#InvertebrateSys #FreeToRead 🕷️🧪

Naming species is crucial to conserving them according to spider expert - ABC listen Living scientist Dr Mark Harvey reaches rare milestone of naming 1000 species of invertebrates.

Dr Mark “Spider Man” Harvey, Western Australian Museum Research Associate and Associate Editor of our journal Invertebrate Systematics, has reached an extraordinary milestone: he has described 1,000th species.

www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

#InvertebrateSys

Porhomma pygmaeum I think. Ignore last post - there's a key and has one spine on femur I, only one pro-lateral spine.

For all the Diabrotica fans out there - 4 species I've seen in this large genus of leaf beetles :

1 Diabrotica limitata, Colombia
2 Diabrotica sp(?), Colombia
3 Diabrotica trifasciata, Costa Rica
4 Diabrotica undecimpunctata, the "Spotted Cucumber Beetle", a major agricultural pest 🤩, Oklahoma, USA

Someone was feeding the pigeons but the gulls decided to crash the party. Mostly Ring-billed Gulls, plus a few Herring Gulls.

The International Society of Arachnology has a new website! 🕷️🕸️🦂🌎🌍🌏
arachnology.org/home

Genus Utivarachna Utivarachna from Suriyakanda, Sri Lanka on March 27, 2022 at 10:26 PM by Kenneth Chin

And here's the other!
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Genus Utivarachna Utivarachna from Ratnapura, Sri Lanka on July 4, 2016 at 03:39 PM by Amila P Sumanapala

Had a look in @inaturalist.bsky.social & was pleasantly surprised to find 2 spider observations from Sri Lanka already identified by @kalakemangga.bsky.social as Utivarachna 3 years ago!
Here's one...
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

"Is it weird to like to read the original descriptions of species? They are often extremely helpful in an ID. Often extremely uninformative to downright useless too, but still fun to read.”
“ipat” on @inaturalist.bsky.social
(Last sentence could refer to original descriptions by Francis Walker!)

Six new species of Utivarachna Kishida, 1940 (Araneae: Trachelidae) from Sri Lanka, with a key to the Sri Lankan species
Naruwan Dayananda & @sureshbenjamin.bsky.social
zenodo.org/records/1761...

Falcon Friday Young Peregrine over Sunset Park. Adult Peregrine atop the butcher’s block, eating the last of what was probably a Feral Pigeon. Note how distended the falcon’s crop is: good bit of mea…

Falcon Friday. From Matthew Wills’ blog. #NatureNYC
matthewwills.com/2025/11/21/f...

Every insect taxonomist has heard of Francis Walker, but who really was Walker? See @bfly52.bsky.social brilliant account of Francis Walker here:
The Life and Work of Francis Walker (1809–1874) by Neal L. Evenhuis. Fly Times, Supplement 2, September, 2018.
dipterists.org/assets/PDF/f...

Francis Walker, sketch by A. G. Butler, 1890. From: Classification of the Acridomorphoid Insects by V. M. Dirsh (1975). This is a screenshot, see image and description in digital copy of book on @archive.org :
archive.org/details/clas...

Subfamily Languriinae Languriinae from 中国广西壮族自治区桂林市龙胜各族自治县 on June 20, 2025 at 09:23 AM by Shiwan Lu

Another great example of how @inaturalist.bsky.social observations enhance taxonomic studies. Here is the iNat observation from which the photo of a live specimen of *Serralanguria sinensis* (new species, type species of new genus) came.
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Latrodecta, Organ of the Laboratory of Arachnology, National Academy of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Company "Fauna" Ltd, Weissenburg
ISSN: 0940-8185
Mainly scientific articles on the breeding & maintenance of arachnids, but it also includes faunistic works.

Anyone know more about this journal?

A new genus and species of the pleasing fungus beetle tribe Languriini is described and illustrated from Asia: doi.org/10.3897/zook...

#taxonomy #newspecies #beetles

My colleagues at @laguardiacc.bsky.social Roman Senkov & Natalia Biani who edit & produce the online magazine Per Aspera Ad Astra (adastraletter.com/editorial) asked me to contribute an article about #iNaturalist @inaturalist.bsky.social. It's now available here 👇
adastraletter.com/2025/2/what-...

Weird ID suggestion difference from @inaturalist.bsky.social depending whether it’s done via a web browser (DuckDuckGo) or with the smartphone app (iPhone). The critter is actually a mayfly (Ephemeroptera), evidently family Baetidae.
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Henry, G. M. (1933). Descriptions and records of Ceylonese Acrididae. Spolia Zeylanica 17(3): 155-200, plts. XXVIII-XXXVI.
archive.org/details/in.e...

Genus Teratodes Teratodes from Wilpattu National Park on November 12, 2019 at 09:34 AM by Anna Wittmer

“… eyes pale yellow with a long, oval, black, central mark which gave the creature a ludicrously smug and solemn appearance;…” From Henry’s description of Pelecinotus lankae. An @inaturalist.bsky.social observation which had previously been misidentified by me!
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

November Insects This stinkbug was in the tub.

November Insects. From Matthew Wills’ blog. #NatureNYC
matthewwills.com/2025/11/18/7...

YouTube video by Sri Lanka Natural History Society SLNHS Public Lecture | What is Inaturalist?

I was invited to give a virtual talk about @inaturalist.bsky.social to the Sri Lanka Natural History Society yesterday & was surprised to find the recording of the talk up already on the SLNHS’s YouTube channel today.
youtu.be/_j0NIp-HY0I?...

Life inside rotting walnut husks » Colin Purrington's blog There’s an eastern black walnut (Juglans nigra) on my neighbor’s property that rains down fruit every fall, and I finally got curious about what species might be inside. So far I’ve found four flies, ...

After years of being curious but lazy, I finally got around to documenting what's inside the black walnuts in my yard. In the process I became obsessed with the strange wasp that hunts down the pupae of the resident flies. 🌿 #wasps #diapriidae #nature #diptera colinpurrington.com/2025/11/life...

Amedeo John Engel Terzi - Wikipedia

Amedeo John Engel Terzi (1872-1956).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amedeo_...

Intrigued by images posted by @ianbeavis.bsky.social from British Blood-sucking Flies by Edwards, Oldroyd & Smart (1939) I found that it had had a precursor in Illustrations of British Blood-sucking Flies (1906), with paintings by Amedeo John Engel Terzi. @archive.org
archive.org/details/illu...

A fly on the edge of an ivy leaf against a blurred green background.

Fly time. 📷 #photography #Diptera

Fall Colors Visit the post for more.

Fall Colors. From Matthew Wills’ blog. matthewwills.com/2025/11/16/7...