Charles Wallace

if overthinking was an olympic sport i’d be banned because i’m transgender

We are, bizarrely, getting rain this week (it's OCTOBER) and I've received texts And emails from multiple agencies about staying safe.

The whole sky has been cloudy all day, if you can even believe it.

Please enjoy 10 seconds of a fat groundhog enjoying an apple at my sister's house 😊

Birders and Animorphs fans.

Butterflies and Moths (Order Lepidoptera) Butterflies and Moths from Tambopata, Peru on June 2, 2025 at 10:28 PM by Kenneth Geisert. Finca Las Piedras Time and location approximate

Not my photograph but thought others would enjoy. And if you know what it is, Kenneth Geisert would appreciate an ID. 🌿 #lepidoptera #peru #insects #moths #inaturalist www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Book cover of “The Scope of Evolutionary Thinking” by Thomas A. C. Reydon, in the Cambridge Elements: The Philosophy of Biology series. Against a black background, the title is surrounded by Ernst Haeckel’s illustrations of marine organisms—radial, symmetrical forms in vivid blues, oranges, reds, and greens.

New Cambridge Element in the Philosophy of Biology series—fully #openaccess! @thomasreydon.bsky.social explores how evolutionary theory crosses over from biology into other fields, showing how these crossovers embody a broader style of reasoning: 'evolutionary thinking' bit.ly/48z3h36 #HPbio #evosky

Two Mexican honey wasps, which are bee-like insects with black bodies, yellow stripes on the lower abdomen and honey-colored wings. Photo credit: Alex Wild.

The Mexican honey wasp is a bit of an oddball: it makes and eats honey like a bee, but when it’s hankering for protein, instead of pollen, it eats other insects. A new study finds its gut microbiome is more like bees than wasps. Funded by USDA and NSF. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

When we hear about a lone scientist who made groundbreaking discoveries on their own, it’s usually erasing the truth that science is a team sport, and field research builds on the local knowledge and expertise of the people that live there (8/10)

Junebug larvae use their back hair to move. #tmi #beetles #coleoptera #entomology #melolonthinae #scarabaeidae

Les termites, en bons jardiniers, utilisent des pesticides (bio, bien sûr) pour protéger leur récolte CHRONIQUE. Face aux attaques de champignons, les insectes nettoient et isolent les parcelles touchées puis les désinfectent grâce à des bactéries qu’ils hébergent dans leur organisme.   Nathaniel Herzberg Publié le 28 septembre 2025 à 06h00   Extrait :    Les chercheurs vont dorénavant tenter de déchiffrer les mécanismes biochimiques à l’œuvre. « Peut-être trouverons-nous des composés utiles pour les paysans et les médecins », espère Rhitoban Ray Choudhury. En attendant, il savoure « l’élégance et l’efficacité » de la stratégie de « biocontrôle » mise en place par les termites. « Ce type de technique agricole à base de bactérie symbiotique était bien connu chez les fourmis attines, observe Erik Frank, de l’université de Würzburg (Allemagne). Mais retrouver cela, avec quelques variantes, chez les termites, c’est saisissant. » Surprenant ? « C’est toujours le cas quand on découvre quelque chose de nouveau, poursuit-il. Mais, à y regarder de près, fourmis et termites font face aux mêmes contraintes – la promiscuité, la nécessité de protéger les champignons, les attaques de pathogènes… Ils ont trouvé des réponses similaires. » Les scientifiques appellent ça la convergence évolutive.   Image : Les termites « Odontotermes obesus » cultivent et se nourrissent de champignons « Termitomyces » (points blancs). DR ANGSHUMAN ROY CHOUDHURY

Les termites Odontotermes obesus cultivent et se nourrissent de champignons Termitomyces (points blancs). Pour protéger leurs cultures, ils mettent en place une véritable startégie de biocontrôle, un « type de technique agricole à base de bactérie symbiotique » déjà connu chez les fourmis attines.

Today in a week (30.09), there will be the book lauch event for the Bloomsbury Handbook of the Philosophy of the Historical Sciences and Big History, edited by our very own Aviezer Tucker and @david-cernin.bsky.social. The event will be hybrid (in person and on Zoom). All welcome and more info below

Reading Rainbow Is Back, With Mychal the Librarian Hosting! - Reactor The butterfly is back in the sky; can’t wait to fly twice as high.

EVERYONE STOP EVERYTHING Mychal the Librarian is hosting the Reading Rainbow revival!!!

reactormag.com/reading-rain...

Trump is asking us to start choosing groups we're willing to abandon, and the only way to make him stop is to be clear we're not fucking abandoning ANYONE.

Call your reps. Call your fucking reps. Especially in red states. Use the @5calls.org app, it's easy and free.

This caterpillar wears the body parts of insect prey Dubbed the “bone collector,” this caterpillar found on a Hawaiian island disguises itself while stalking spider webs for trapped insects to eat.

there's that one "bone collector" caterpillar that wears the body parts of other insects on it for camouflage. Love the photo illo here pointing out the severed heads: www.sciencenews.org/article/cate...

Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin -- Conference Registration A hybrid conference on the 40th anniversary of Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin's The Dialectical Biologist, to be held in person at the University of Toronto and online via zoom. Registration is…

📢 Register for the Dialectical Biologist anniversary event to explore different perspectives on the intersections of biology, philosophy, and politics. Available in-person or online. Reserve your spot today!

Walnut Husk Maggot Fly (Rhagoletis suavis) Walnut Husk Maggot Fly from Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA on September 26, 2025 at 11:43 AM by Colin Purrington. I'm attempting to rear to adulthood. Ultimate goal is to get photographs of the pupal endo...

Walnuts have been raining down on me in my back yard so I decided to have a look inside. Sure enough, crammed with walnut husk maggot flies (Rhagoletis suavis). There's a cool diapriid wasp that seeks out the pupae so I hope to get pics of it, too, come spring. 🌿 www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Green planthopper with wings longer than its body, and a long pointy snoot like the prow of a ship

Snoot

Photograph of a brown tabby cat's head peaking over the top of a cat tree.

The greatest cat who ever lived, Henry "Hank" Wallace (2009-2025), died today.

Hold your loved ones close.

Taphonomy of aquatic insects from the Crato Formation Lagerstätte (Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) under an actualistic look The Crato Formation (Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) is a fossiliferous deposit of global significance, representing a lacustrine palaeoenvironment which offers insights into aquatic insect taphonomy. Despi...

Really interesting and excellently executed taphonomic study alert!

The authours designed neat insect disarticualtion experiments to better understand preservational patterns of insect found in the Crato Formation, Brazil. 🪰🪳🦟

Very very cool work by Storari et al.
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

A screenshot of some text of a paper, with the following sentence highlighted: "One July evening last summer, while engaged in wheeling the baby (another one this time) through some tall grass in the corner of my yard, I noticed..." It continues "an Ammophila attached to a grass-stem in the peculiar..."

I love the way science used to be written. Is it necessary to know that the author was pushing his baby in a pram while making observations of insects? Perhaps not, but it provides delightful context, while assuming the reader is familiar with his previously published baby-wheeling-related work.

But What Did They Used to Call You? A bill to seal the name and gender change records for trans and nonbinary people is set to pass in California. It’s not enough.

If you've legally changed your name and gender marker in California, that info is searchable online. A new bill seeks to seal those records — but does it go far enough?

✍️: @nuala.bsky.social

A red and black beetle with wings extended appears to be taking off from a green, leafy plant. The background is blurred, highlighting the insect amid foliage in the foreground.

Arthropod Photo of the Week: September 24, 2025
Red net-winged beetle
Punicealis hamata
Coleoptera: Lycidae
By Adam Haberski (@ahaberski.bsky.social), Alaska, USA
#arthropodPOTW

Trump Digs In On Anti-Trans Provisions In Shutdown Fight Message The provisions are becoming a key sticking point in the ongoing fight to keep the government open.

1. Trump has dug in on anti-trans provisions in the shutdown fight this morning, cancelling a meeting with Dems unless they cave on trans people.

His post to Truth Social is a clear indication that Republicans are making targeting trans people a priority.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

let me share a little story about a remarkable wasp that I encountered yesterday in our local deserts

I stumbled across her, and scrambled to get a few crappy photos .... but then realized that she had a burrow, perhaps a better photo op was possible ??

here she is at her burrow entrance.

Black in Natural History Museums in now open! See it on Floor 3 in the Museum's Gilder Center. Details: bit.ly/3KfbzTS

Evolution of sideways locomotion in crabs The evolutionary change in the mode of locomotion is often a major evolutionary event, triggering diversification. Sideways locomotion is a defining feature of true crabs (Brachyura) and may have cont...

🚨 Exciting new crab preprint! A Japanese team found that sideways walking only evolved once! Maybe carcinization itself is necessary but not sufficient to go sideways?

When it's lost, the species that go forward have alternate anti predation behaviors. 🧪🦑🦀

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Rove beetles are fierce hunters. This one was in a long battle with a large prey: a dung beetle.

#insects #invertebrates #beetles #coleoptera

COYOTE Independent journalism with a bite!

It would be fucking amazing if folks gave their cancelled Disney+, WaPo, etc money to worker owned media! Those couple of dollars would make a genuinely huge difference to us. www.coyotemedia.org

Macro photo of a large grey fly in side view on a pure white background. The fly has a dark metallic blue abdomen, red eyes, and a sort of fleshy looking rounded face.

Portrait of a human bot fly. Belize. Friend? Maybe not. But cuter as an adult, I'd say.

And @coyotemedia.org!