Isa Betancourt

All good!
I have not yet been to butterfly world but I’ve met some folks from there at a conference. I am due for a visit!🦋
How are you familiar with these places? Did you visit or live here?

See the knobs on the antennae? She is a butterfly! Was the moth survey part of moth week?

Yes it is a cool area with the Salt River running through!🙌✨

Thank you! 🦋 I noticed that she kept on landing on this plant and then when I saw her curve her abdomen. I was like - ah hah! She was a mother on a mission to find a happy spot for her offspring.

Butterfly with her abdomen curved to lay an egg at the base of a flower bud.

Photo where we can see the egg between the flower buds.

New year, new life! Happy 2026.
A Ceraunas Blue (Hemiargus ceraunus) lays an egg on the budding flowers of a plant in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. The mountains have been so green & full of butterflies this year thanks to the many rains. Last year was the opposite - dry and brown.
⛰️🦋🌿

Reality check- Some of the answers would not typically be found on the web tho.
Still, a fun one!

Play Strands, our newest word-search game with a twist. Find hidden words and uncover the day’s theme.

“On the web”-themed @nytimes.com Strands game today!
Fastest Strands I’ve ever done 😌🕷️
www.nytimes.com/games/strands

😂😂 so true👍

Happy #ECN2025 wknd everyone!!
Sadly, I am not there in person this year, but I look forward to tuning in online as much as I can.
There is a great line-up of presentations.
Big thanks to the presenters and organizers!

For anyone who wants to tune in:$20, $5 for students: ecnweb.net/welcome/meet...

📢 Ento job klaxon!

Texas A&M University are advertising not one but TWO faculty positions in #Arthropod #Systematics and #Biodiversity 🪲

Full details and to apply:
➡️ apply.interfolio.com/175600

Definitely cuter as an adult 😅

Bumble bee on yellow petal of cup plant

Two bees visiting two separate flowers of the cup plant. One bee has tons of pollen on its hind legs.

A bumblebee resting on the underside of a cup plant.

The bees are loving the flowering Cup Plant! They seem to like resting or sleeping on it too.

#NativePlants #bugsky #cupplant
@isabetabug.bsky.social

Overall, I would give the Salt River water trail in Arizona a solid Odonata-boosted thumbs up. Highly recommend!

And then there was this damselfly who had a majorly bent abdomen. I’ve never seen that before either! I do not know how or why it’s that way. 🤔

I also discovered that Veliids bite!!
News to me! I was bit by quite a few that day.
Did YOU know that they bite?

I’m guessing it’s a casual..’let me taste this bc why not’ kind of thing rather than a targeted attack (like in mosquitoes).
Still hurt tho😬
Here is one that had JUST rudely bit me😡:

I was sitting there watching her and another female for 20minutes. By the end, my submerged right food had accumulated quite a number of leeches!! One was latched, the others were chilling. I do wonder if they were blood suckers or just were there because I was a piece of furniture after 20min.

I watched the male damselfly drop her off at the water’s surface! And the whole time I was recording, he was hovering above, I’m guessing waiting for her to resurface?

I haven’t seen that behavior before. I always thought they stayed attached the whole time and for paternity reasons.

Thank you! It was so exciting to see

That previous photo is me taking a video of an adult, winged, female damselfly who is underwater and laying eggs in the stems of the underwater plants. Here is the view. You can watch her curl her abdomen around and insert the two eggs!! 🥚 🌿

Me this past Sunday on the Salt River, east of Phoenix, AZ.
Can you guess what I’m taking a video of?? 🔍✨

Tomorrow we are hiking to a waterfall in the cloud forest. It is a half hour hike to the waterfall but they are giving us four hours for the hike because… well, bugs! Iykyk
🦋🐞🐜🦗🪲🪰🕷️🔍

Camera flipped and it’s me, @beetlequeen.bsky.social and @arthropodabbey.bsky.social on the other side!
#CricketCourse

Thanks! We are at a station by the Children’s Eternal Rainforest

The classroom! With Dr. Hojun Song getting us oriented. 🇨🇷🦗
We will be learning Ensifera (katydid and cricket) phylogeny, behavior, morphology, and acoustics this week.
#CricketCourse

Isa smiling at the camera and pointing to a “welcome to Costa Rica” tourism sign that is in the background.

Greetings from Costa Rica!
I made it through immigration and customs. I am now on the group bus and headed to the field station with the 13 other students and our lead instructor for this cricket and katydid course.

I’m headed to Costa Rica for a cricket course!
No not the sport but the insect!
Can’t wait. I’ll bring you along - posting tidbits, encounters, and updates here in BlueSky :)
🦗🦗🦗🦗🎶

Nice job!

I was happily surprised by this one though at first I wasn’t sure if it might mean computer code buggy!

Play Strands, our newest word-search game with a twist. Find hidden words and uncover the day’s theme.

My friends, you must do the @nytimes.com’s Strands game today (Thursday May 29)
✨🪲😉
www.nytimes.com/games/strands

😂😂❤️

ML633750074 - Spotted Towhee - Macaulay Library Macaulay Library ML633750074; © Laura Macky; Contra Costa, California, United States

Hey look, @isabetabug.bsky.social - it's a picture of me and you! 🤗👯

macaulaylibrary.org/asset/633750...
#buggirl #birdgirl #naturesky

With new tool, birds can help track – and save – wild bees | Cornell Chronicle A new publicly available tool uses data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program to track and estimate the diversity of wild bees across the eastern and central U.S. - with implications for...

Monitoring and protecting birds and bees. news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...

Check it out @isabetabug.bsky.social