Ainsley S

Just a few days left to submit the ASN student research award (due March 13th)!!!! This is an AWESOME opportunity for students to get some grant writing experience!!! We LOVE reading your grants and giving feedback!!!!!!!!!!! Apply, Apply, Apply!!!!!!

www.amnat.org/announcement...

well, neither of them is swarmed with saprophagous insects >:(

Rhizanthes lowii "flower" photo by Ch'ien Lee, a terrible plant structure that looks like a free-range rectum, positively swarming with delighted flies

"flower" of Mitrastemon yamamoti from Suetsugu (2018), another stinky plant structure that attracts a VAST array of insects (including flies, beetles, cockroaches, orthopterans, etc) to come nibble its horrid pink flesh

reading up on holoparasitic plants, regretting it instantly

I salute PDZA for their commitment to aardvarks, they were my fave exhibit as a toddler back when E.T. the walrus was the big celebrity and I’m so glad they’re still a mainstay

Diopsid (stalk eyed fly) from iNat; its eyes are on two preposterous stalks and it’s not even the most outrageous one in the family

A classic pipunculid fly, whose entire head is EYEBALL

They already look like that!!

Not to mention the fact that an experienced taxonomist is STILL faster than a DNA lab (or even AI)

CO-SIGNED!
I’ve met so many folks who want to study bugs and learn how to find new species, there are absolutely more interested parties than there are jobs

macro photo of a black bumblebee queen with a single yellow band near the end of her abdomen. You can see her from just below the her head down as she's tucked way into a bright yellow daffodil flower.

🚨🚨Bumblebee Butt Season has officially arrived‼️🚨🚨

(Just took this at 5:30 p.m., she is asleep 😂 those little back toes tho!)

#inverts #pollinators #becurious

ABSURD

Nah that’s just the hemipterists

It’s just a regular ol cladistic question, which lineage evolved first

You know, like a birdo but for plants

early angiosperm corner of Zuntini et al (2024) phylogenomics of land plants paper, appearing to show (Magnoliids(Monocots)) as sister to eudicots

snippet of the phylogeny from Liu et al 2022, showing monocots as the sister group to magnoliids + eudicots

hey plantos, is there a consensus on which angiosperm lineage is sister to eudicots (or eudicots + ceratophyllales)? Do we simply not know because they radiated so fast?

lord have mercy those are some stinkers

Opinion | The Glorious Birds We Saved

Finally wrote about the miracle of the whooping cranes. I cling to every miracle these days. Holding close every wondrous scrap of unexpected glory is the only way I get through a day in this country anymore. Gift link via @nytopinion: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/o...

Wow! Academic necromancy at last!

People refuse to acknowledge how an LLM actually works, and insist on assigning meaning and understanding to its output. There is no meaning, and the system understands neither the user’s question nor its own “response.”

Flycatchers and warblers are honorary bugs

this is why we have social media, so we can all suffer together in our various ways

snippet of a photo of Eupholus schoenherrii, showing the glittery blue-purple flattened tarsi

the giant foam tarsus is absolutely shaped like the sparkly clown shoe of a Eupholus

illustration from the same text of a weevil leg and foot, showing that some horrible species have both a "premucro" AND an uncus boy I'd hate for this to be a critical character in the dichotomous key

you fool, you simpleton, that was a PREMUCRO that was MARGINALLY BASAD of the uncus

helpful illustration from Marvaldi & Lanteri's weevil key, demonstrating the difference between a mucro (sharp spur at the tibial apex) and an uncus (sharp spur at the tibial apex)

welcome to WEEVIL HELL, today we will be playing
*audience roars*
MUCRO
or
UNCUS

Look at them!! Just perfect lil leaf litter dragon beasts

‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out? Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be ...

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

:((( I’M SORRY BUT HE IS GROSS

New York Times said it was the coldest winter in 17 years

I didn't feel so cold then

:c
sorry brother tick
you were simply too gross

Salvador Vitanza's portrait of a very polite and slightly inquisitive weevil in the genus Phyllotrox, its face still lightly dusted with pollen, head turned as if preparing to answer an interview question

reading about derelomine weevils, simply charmed by this lil man

she's! doing! her! best!

!!!
Don’t forget the capybara