Stop! Hammer fly time! El Septimo Paraíso, Mindo, Ecuador

These two are the same insect, 26 minutes apart. The picture on the left is the regular appearance. The one on the right is what the insect looks like after it is scared and produces a chemical that spreads between its body and its elytra. 🌿🌱 #beetle #insect

Hi. Im a bird photographer now. Golden tailed sapphire ☆ Wild Sumaco Ecolodge

Best bug color pallet ever! It's one of the few katydids that's actually toxic so these wild colors give predators a warning. #Moncheca elegans ☆ Wild Sumaco Ecolodge #katydid #purplebug #Ecuador #cloudforesr

minor bsky tip for readability if you want nested replies/trees: Settings > Content and Media > Thread Preferences > Tree View video instructions in replies mine was off by default and i much prefer nested comments

25 minutes of Photuris tremulans fireflies in Tennessee's smoky mountains.

Bonus entomology: lac/shellac is from our friend Kerria lacca, which is of course a scale insect just like the new world's fave dye source, Dactylopius. Different families but both coccoids!

Larkin Francis, PhD, MSW@mwfrancis.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I've used "lake" pigments most of my life and I (strangely, fo me) never dug into what "lake" meant. Fascinating thread! Also, bonus etymology: "Lake" here isn't anything to do with water. It comes from "lac," the Persian / Hindi word for shellac, which is where we get lacquer

Here's a National Science Foundation paper I worked on that will be impossible under the regime's proposed rules. We study evolution, which happens across the entire globe. We had collaborators in Argentina, in Australia, in Germany. We cannot do our kind of science in one country.

The beetle tree of life reveals that Coleoptera survived end‐Permian mass extinction to diversify during the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution

Here we present a phylogeny of beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera) based on DNA sequence data from eight nuclear genes, including six single-copy nuclear protein-coding genes, for 367 species representing ...

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Female Bird Day was this past weekend but I missed it femalebirdday.wordpress.com I do have a print of female birds that's sure to educate and baffle topatoco.com/products/rom...

Paint me like one of your french girls ...

Cri 🕊🐝🐜📝🎭⚽😷@crawlieswithcri.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Mauve-lous Band-tailed knows how to find their light! #birds #becurious

Happy Mother’s Day everyone, and best of luck keeping all your little ones together.

Date: I thought you said you worked in Finance? What's up with your 15 year old beater car?! Entomologist: Finance? Date: Entomologist: Oh, I see what's happened here.

Epic gif

Jen Cross@jencross.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Turning the lights out on a harvester - this gif transitions from normal light to UV light. Compounds in the exoskeleton absorb and re-emit ultraviolet light as visible light. This phenomenon is called biofluorescence. #invertefest (Phareicranaus sp.) Refugio del Intag, Ecuador

Maybe we saw a faerie 🤷‍♀️🧚‍♀️

Jen Cross@jencross.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Story time. These photos were taken at night. After I was done I was standing there waiting while @scibugs.bsky.social got some photos with her phone. We had most of our lights off and I was looking into pitch black forest and saw a small red light. I ran through animals with eye shine in my mind..

Im bummed I couldn't get a better picture of this but it was dark and this creature was really small. This! Is a pseudoscorpion (the black clawed thing) that has grabbed onto a weevil leg and is being toted around and is using the weevil like a bus.

Some beetle squeaks for you! If you listen carefully, this beetle is making a squeaking sound by rubbing its wings against its abdomen. It’s not happy with being picked up. #invertefest (Veturius sp.?) Cotacachi, Ecuador

A treehopper mom guards her eggs from predators and parasites. Many treehoppers have an enlarged pronotum (the segment behind the head), in this case resembling thorns. (Alchisme sp.) El Refugio de Intag, Ecuador #Invertefest

What's the weather like up at 13,000 ft?

Montane Woodcreeper chattering outside my window this afternoon. This is a nice view of their grappling hooks and spiky tail feathers. These birds can be found in the Andes from 1,500m to 3,000m (4,900ft to 9,800ft). 🪶 El Septimo Paraiso Lodge, Ecuador

Most in the US are parthenogenic - meaning females make clones of themselves. Here in Ecuador, if you're lucky you can find the males which are almost non-existant in the states. We found a male but he noped out of there real fast.

Jen Cross@jencross.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This little lady is an American Pelecinid Wasp. While she may look intimidating, she uses that long abdomen to probe soil to find beetle grubs on which to lay eggs. These wasps have a large range, from western South America north through eastern North America. El Septimo Paraiso Lodge, Ecuador

A reminder that #EarthDay means appreciating all of earth and its inhabitants

Stingless bee afternoon commute. A swarm of stingless bees forms a cloud outside the nest, seen on the right. Sendero Fruttitour, Pedro Vincente Maldonado, Ecuador

A zen moment - forest light passing through a reed

Super snazzy treehopper found in a shrubby patch along a roadside near a small stream. Check out the red racing stripes! (Metcalfiella erecta) Intag Refugio, Ecuador

This frog and I feel the same about the state of the world. EL Refugio, Intag, Ecuador

When your snake mimic outfit ends up looking like a cartoon instead. This funky friend is a Sphinx Moth caterpillar found by @scibugs.bsky.social today. (Xylophanes crotonis) Intag Refugio, Ecuador

Who's gonna tell him his mimicry is ... kinda off ...? Hawk moth El Refugio, Intag, Ecuador

He's a vibe.

Jen Cross@jencross.bsky.social · 4mo ago

We went out on a night hike last night and @scibugs.bsky.social spotted this adorable Red-spotted Glass Frog. These frogs are found in the Andes Mountains from Colombia south into Ecuador. Intag Refugio, Ecuador

There were also rove beetles running around swiping fly larvae. It was a whole tiny ecosystem on one log. Amazing. (Chroaptomus sp.) #invert Intag Refugio, Ecuador

These guys were so cool. And they seem to only come out in the afternoon around 1200pm. We passed by earlier in the morning two days in a row and they weren't there

Jen Cross@jencross.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Just a lil guy defending his mushroom. We found a log covered in mushrooms and spotted some small hammerhead flies on it. Turns out these are feisty fruit flies and the males are serious about defending their patch. One of our coolest finds so far! #invert (Zygothrica sp.) Intag Refugio, Ecuador