Marshal Hedin

A collage of STEM elements including an orca whale, giant ground sloth, dinosaur skull, and more with text, "Adventures in Nature."

🪲 Another exciting season of Adventures in Nature Day Camp is nearly here! Whether it’s exploring dinosaurs or the nature all around us in new ways, our programs have provided decades of unique, hands-on experiences for campers.

Summer's sessions begin June 29—register today: go.nhm.org/adventures

Recluse spiders (Araneae: Sicariidae): contesting myths on distribution, bite behavior, and medical risk in Florida Abstract. Recluse spiders are arachnids of potential medical significant due to their necrotic venom. However, in areas populated by the brown recluse, Lox

Brown recluse spiders exonerated! In Florida, recluses are rare, much less likely to bite than other spiders, even when provoked, and the one verified bite did not produce necrosis.

The first article is an amazing bit of taxonomic work by David Maddison and a host of collaborators: ssbbulletin.org/article/id/5....

Science knows of 21,000 bee species. There are likely thousands more A new paper provides the first statistically derived estimate of bee species richness around the world. But this is about more than bees.

We also provide a handy article in The Conversation!
doi.org/10.64628/AA....

I wonder indeed 😟

Looking for something Marsh-velous to do this weekend? Visit the Alabama Museum of Natural History on February 21 from 1-4 p.m. for “Family Day”! This event is a free hands-on exploration of subjects studied by The University of Alabama’s Graduate Students.

Video: UA Student Anna Mullins

Dung beetles – happy to do nature’s most thankless job - Value in nature There’s a lot of biology encapsulated in the deceptively simple children’s book title: ‘Everyone poops’. The world might be awash in animal waste, were it not for an effective clean-up...

One can't write about ecosystem services for long without giving dung beetles their due. So, here's my inevitable attempt to Make Dung Beetles Great Again:

mscaterino.pika.page/posts/dung-b...

#biodiversity #nature 🌐

Don’t miss the 15th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day on Saturday, Feb. 21. 12 museums or collections will be open. A free and family friendly event, a Super Science Day, where you can talk one-on-one with the scientists. Download a map on website

biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu

Review on The Chemical Ecology of Arachnids - Morphology, Behaviour and Semiochemicals now out as PREPRINT
doi.org/10.32942/X22...
with Kirk Hillier, Lise Roy and @nicolettafaraone.bsky.social
We are grateful for any feedback to improve the review during the submission process

Map from ECMWF ensemble showing cooler than average temperatures across most of the western United States over a 5-day period about a week from now.

The first storm of the much-anticipated pattern shift brought widespread rain to CA, with some modest mountain snowfall in Sierra Nevada and points east. After a couple of quieter days, a sequence of much colder storms will follow (with much larger mountain snowfalls).

In my backyard this morning

Somehow makes me so happy!

The most wonderful time of the year @sandiegostate.bsky.social, when we get to celebrate the one and only Chucky D, and his incredible contributions to science. Can’t wait to visit him at Westminster Abbey next month! A few glimpses from today’s celebrations. Happy Darwin Day everyone!

Fellow Dipterists / systematists / ecologists, if you have not yet heard, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada is planning to eliminate the Diptera Unit at the Canadian National Collection of Insects, supposedly for financial reasons. The open letter below has been prepared by Dr. Art Borkent. If you agree with the letter, and would like to add your name in support, please follow the directions below. Message is as follows: ********************* The following is an “Open Letter” that will be presented to the Canadian press by a Member of Parliament, Ms. Elizabeth May. If you can support this petition, please send your name, full affiliation and address (including country) to Art Borkent’s email: artborkent@telus.net Your name will be added to a supporting list that will likely never be seen publicly but needs to be noted by our member of parliament. Please consider helping to stop the removal of the Diptera Unit in Ottawa, Canada. Please remember that we are writing this for the press – someone gave advice that it should be written at about the level of an intelligent 14 year old. If any of you are members of another society of specialized Dipterists or otherwise, please feel free to send this on to your other colleagues. I am hoping to have this submitted to Elizabeth May with all the signatures by Friday, Feb. 13. Time is of the essence. best wishes, Art Borkent and David Grimaldi

(Message too long for alt-text): the text of the first page of an open letter to support keeping the Diptera Unit open at the Canadian National Collection of Insects and Nematodes.

(Message too long for alt-text): the text of the second page of an open letter to support keeping the Diptera Unit open at the Canadian National Collection of Insects and Nematodes.

A sampling of output from the Diptera Unit at the CNC

From Chris Borkent: Fellow Dipterists/systematists/ecologists: Agri./Agri-Food Canada plans to eliminate the Diptera Unit at the Canadian National Collection of Insects. Dr. Art Borkent has prepared an open letter to support keeping the unit open. To sign, please read & follow the instructions here.

Subterranean ecosystems are key to water, climate, biodiversity & culture. But to what extent?

As part of @biodiversa.eu DarCo we demonstrate that they contribute to 75% of classified ecosystem services. Read OA in Biol Rev:

doi.org/10.1002/brv....

Illustration @jmalumbresolarte.bsky.social

Medical doctors have no particular expertise on spider bites, and absent the patient bringing in the spider in a jar, and/or a venom test, 99% of "spider bites" are something else.

Medical doctors, in the absense of knowledge, will pass along folklore just to avoid admitting they don't know.

This is great!

Hidden treasures - Leaf litter arthropods and the good that they do - Value in nature I spend the majority of my research time looking at minute arthropods that live in soil and leaf litter. These species represent a large proportion of biodiversity, hundreds of thousands...

Interested in the ecosystem services provided by leaf-litter arthropod communities? Read all about it in the latest 'Value in nature' post: 'Hidden treasures'. #biodiversity #nature 🌐

mscaterino.pika.page/posts/hidden...

i found this little jumper yesterday in east San Diego County, and she has the most wonderful eyelashes!

See you all at Darwin Day next week on our beautiful @sandiegostate.bsky.social campus, featuring Dr. Jim McGuire's keynote lecture on "Darwin, Wallace, and my Own Studies on the Magical Island of Sulawesi, Indonesia"! Deets in the flyer - but please DM me if you have any questions.

Rocks ? 😂

Skeleton shrimp: superior snackers

This amphipod in the family Caprellidae, has feather-like setae line several of their 18 appendages for collecting food — amphipod translates to “feet on all sides” in Greek.

#argentiniandeepseeps ~1200 meters

infographic for an insect macrophotography workshop featuring photo of a wasp

Interested in insect macrophotography? If you are in the midwest, think about attending this workshop put on by @ageofarthropods.bsky.social and myself, 2-3 May 2026 cvent.me/qK5bOo

A man, with his logs, in the woods.

Siskiyou County is the best !

Global sampling decline erodes science potential of natural history collections - Nature Communications Natural history collections hold over two billion specimens representing Earth’s biodiversity, but their scientific value depends on continued specimen collection and digitisation. This study demonstr...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reminds me of a Star Wars character that you perhaps once battled?

I mean shit, that WAS yesterday. Htf are we supposed to remember things that happened yesterday?? 🤷‍♂️

Clown ….

Given that at least 50% of all biodiversity is unknown to science , the answer is obviously yes!

Bighorn ram up close showing curl eyes, ears nose

Bighorn rams up close showing curl eyes, ears nose

Bighorn ram up close showing munching on greens

Bighorn ram up close showing eating and a weed stuck on the curl

From a group of 14 bighorn rams who were roaming around Borrego Palm Canon on 2026-01-18 (Photos: Sicco Rood). (3)

An ancient genome duplication event drives the development and evolution of spinnerets in spiders A genome duplication event during the Silurian played a crucial role in the evolutionary emergence of spinnerets in spiders.

Chromosome-scale #genomes from newly sequenced spiders & the whip scorpion, the genetic basis of spinneret emergence in spiders & the complex history & functional importance of arachnid genome #evolution www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #biodiversity #genomics