Reading Entomology

Laboratory benches with rows of microscopes, each with an illuminated box of insect specimes

Pinned specimen of a burying beetle - an orange and black beetle with yellow hairs

Students using white sweep nets in a meadow of grass and buttercups with trees beyond

A wonderful week for undergraduate Entomology teaching at Reading whether in the labs or out on campus

Events Committee Vacancies 2025 - Royal Entomological Society The RES is looking to recruit members to join our newly structured Events Committee, working in line with our new Events Strategy. We particularly welcome applicants whose expertise relates to areas o...

@royentsoc.bsky.social are looking for new committee members to join the Events Committee 🦋

Interested in helping with events like #Ento2025 or #Verrall then consider applying! www.royensoc.co.uk/opportunitie...

@hau-entomology.bsky.social @insectwrs.bsky.social @unirdgento.bsky.social

It starts now 🦋

We need your help to support the endangered #LargeBlue butterfly. Starting today, this week only, your contributions will be DOUBLED - Help us raise £10,000 match funded via #BigGive

Read more & donate between 22–29 April 🔽
buff.ly/BpXY1hY

@gloswildlife.bsky.social #EarthDay

Insect Taxonomy and Field Sampling Skills 5-day free course for doctoral students and early career researchers in ecology/entomology, seeking an essential overview of taxonomic theory, insect identification skills, basic field sampling and sp...

FULLY-FUNDED residential insect ID and field surveying summer school, organised by
@oxfordconted.bsky.social,
@morethanadodo.bsky.social and @biology.ox.ac.uk, for PhD students or early career researchers.

📅14-18 July 2025

Apply by 9 May:
www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/inse...

🧪 🌍 #academicsky 🐝

RES Great Welfare Survey 2025 - Royal Entomological Society Insect Research Practices and Ethics in the UK Share Your Experience on Ethics Applications Are you a researcher working with insects? We need your insights! The Royal Entomological Society is conduct...

⏰LAST CALL! ⏰

The @royentsoc.bsky.social Insect Welfare Survey closes TODAY!

If you work with insects in the UK take a moment to fill it out 🐝🦗🐞

www.royensoc.co.uk/news/res-wel...

@hau-entomology.bsky.social @unirdgento.bsky.social @lshtm.bsky.social @lstmnews.bsky.social @cvrinfo.bsky.social

Flyer for conference: Bucks Invertebrate Group Conference Sunday 27 April 2025 from 9.30am to 4.30pm, Great Missenden Memorial Centre, HP16 9AE A day to celebrate insects and other invertebrates in the county. Including The Eric Hollowday Lecture, to be given by Dr Chris Wilson, on The extraordinary biology of bdelloid rotifers. Plus talks on dragonflies, moths, spiders, bumblebees, flies and much more. Full details and programme can be found on the Bucks Invertebrate Group website. Free to attend but please contact us to book your place: bucksinvertgroup@gmail.com

Buckinghamshire Invertebrate Group has its 1st ever conference on Sun 27 April, Great Missenden. A great range of talks including Dr Chris Wilson's lecture in memory of Eric Hollowday, rotifer enthusiast extraordinaire & long-time member of BIG. Details & bookings: sites.google.com/site/bucksin...

I like big bugs and I cannot lie

A collection of pinned butterflies from the UK in a glass topped display box

A pulled out drawer display box filled with large, black, white and yellow butterflies

A glass topped display box filled with pinned Hawkmoth specimens

Teaching Lepidoptera ID with @unirdgento.bsky.social today.

A chance for me to brush up on my moth skills but mostly a good opportunity to have a look through the amazing pinned collection we have here 🦋

Foxhill House on the University of Reading campus, a large three storey red brick Victorian house

A red plaque fixed to brickwork reading "Alfred Waterhouse, 1830 - 1905, Architect...designed this house and lived here 1868 - 1881"

Stained glass window containing representations of a colourful bird and a bat against the night sky with two stars

Open hall of Foxhill House with students relaxing on leather sofas in front of a large fireplace with ornate wood surround.

Alfred Waterhouse - architect for @nhm-london.bsky.social - also designed Foxhill House in Reading as his home. Now part of the University of Reading campus it was a comfortable destination for our @unirdgento.bsky.social data analysis 'away' day this week!

Palaeontology trilobite practical tomorrow and I’m hoping the students appreciate these wonderful trilobite eyes. #trilobite #palaeontologyatUoR #Colemuseumofzoology @unirdgento.bsky.social @uniofreading.bsky.social

Today I lecturing at @unirdgento.bsky.social on flies…but the wonderful @waspwoman.bsky.social is here talking about Wasps and their value

We share a common issues of disliked hero’s!

@ionace.bsky.social and I identified and databased 6,600 UK ichneumonoids light-trapped by an amazing crew of moth trappers in 2024. Wonderful dataset. Recent highlights: first Rogas luteus for over 100 years and Enicospilus myricae, haven’t seen since I described it in 2016.

A blue damselfly sitting on a finger

Close up image of a pinned metallic blue wasp with a large red eye and long ovipositor

Common blue butterfly sitting on a plantain seed head

A metallic blue jewel beetle with a red stripe across it's back

A few favourites from home and away for this year's #BlueMonday #BlueBugs campaign

1 Azure Damselfly, UK
2 Wasp (ID tbc) - part of our current insect rearing project in Panama. 📷 credit Marleny Rivera
3 Common Blue, UK
4 Jewel beetle, Panama

A Black-tailed Skimmer (dragonfly with green eyes, blue abdomen with a black tip) sitting in sunshine on a reddish rock

To make a change from all that gaudy metallic blue (joking, keep those coming...) here's a lovely Black-tailed Skimmer. Abdomen the colour of a summer sky seen through hazy upper level cloud #BlueBugs #BlueMonday 🟦🌤️

Welcome, what better possible start than an insect collection tour!

AI-INTERVENE is now accepting applications for 26 PhD projects in AI and Biodiversity findaphd.com/phds/program.... Hosted by UCL and the University of Reading, in partnership with NHM, ZSL, Kew Gardens, and UKCEH. More details at ai-intervene.net
#biodiversity #AI #conservation

Image shows an annotated wing of an ichneumon wasp scribbled over with the outline of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer's head

✅ Picture of Rudolph on their wing

✅ DISCOsubmarginal cell

✅ Lay eggs in living bodies of their hosts

Ichneumon wasps are ready for the festive party season!

So completely baffling. What's wrong with a good photograph showing a similar scene- of which there are probably millions!

arnold schwarzenegger wearing sunglasses says " i 'll be back " ALT: arnold schwarzenegger wearing sunglasses says " i 'll be back "

The Determinator?

@acallazoo.bsky.social is the curator so will know 🙂

The Cole museum, Univeristy of Reading, has the best models!

Of course Eurypterids are amazing 🤓

Taechinidae?

Therevidae - species of fly (has a beard)

Inbiomyiidae are a family of flies first described in 2006

Bombyliidae - Villa cingulata

Books written by Erica McAlister including Metamorphosis, the Secret Life of Flies and the Inside out of Flies

Off to taech on the @unirdgento.bsky.social course today (although train has been cancelled..)

Got a bag full of flies and books, and stocked up on my stories!

Had a great time with @unirdgento.bsky.social discussing the value of museum collections and showing off some very special specimens from the ~4,000,000 specimens we are custodians for. #SmallOrders

A specimen of 'Chan's Megastick', the world's longest insect

Specimens of Lord Howe Island Stick Insect which was rediscovered and saved from extinction

Last, but not least, the 'small' orders. But there's nothing small about the world's longest insect! Thanks to @beetlequeen.bsky.social for showing us these fabulous specimens.

Erica with her box of 'flashy' fly specimens

A stalk-eyed fly

Diving into the extraordinary world of flies with @flygirlnhm.bsky.social

A tray of pinned carpenter bees

Students on a tour listening to Gavin Broad, curator of Hymenoptera at NHM London

A box of pinned Velvet Ants and Cockroach hunting wasps.

Getting enthused about the wonderful world of wasps

A case of fabulously coloured and patterned lepidoptera

A case of fabulously coloured and patterned lepidoptera

A case of fabulously coloured and patterned lepidoptera

Next, Lepidoptera 🤯

A long row of metal cabinets containing beetle specimens

Max Barclay of NHM showing some of the Coleoptera collections

A tray of large beetles

The world's largest (Titan) and smallest (feather-winged) beetles

A treat to be at NHM London with our MSc group today. First, Coleoptera.

Enjoying a spot of beatle collecting on our first evening in Liverpool....excited for #Ento24 today @royentsoc.bsky.social!