Arthropod Photo of the Week: October 29, 2025 Net-casting spider Asianopis sp. Araneae: Deinopidae By Dennis Botterbusch, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany #arthropodPOTW

Xylethrus superbus is a fabulous species of orb weaving spider from the Amazon rainforest. While she looks a bit like a strawberry, eating her is not recommended. #Arachtober Cuyabeno Reserve, Ecuador 2022

Getting close to wrapping up a big Paraphidippus aurantius 🍊video featuring courtship behavior, silk production, possible mate-guarding, cannibalism and more 🫡 here's a big female w/ a lot of orange scales - July, 2021, NE Oklahoma

Never too late to say that I had a fantastic time at the @35theca2025.bsky.social conference in gorgeous Zadar a few weeks ago! I met many incredible arachnid enthusiasts, presented about biotremology in a symposium on sensory biology, and was honored to be recognized with 2nd prize for my talk! 🕷️

Our journal congratulates @ortizmovliavc.bsky.social l for her award at @35theca2025.bsky.social ! Her work, “Winter warming increases metabolic stress and mortality in an overwintering spider,” got her a free publication in a @pensoft.net journal. zookeys.pensoft.net/news/993

new paper, led by Lin Yan from the Elias Lab at UCB Latent preference for red ornamentation drives interspecific mating in nascent jumping spider species (Habronattus americanus group, F. Salticidae) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Thanks @animal-prattle.bsky.social for reminding me to post about this project🐋🎵 Mia Davitt (+ col), musician from 🇺🇸, attempted to transcribe whale sounds in Western musical style. Turns out to work quite well, so we #preprint ed these interesting results: osf.io/preprints/os... #OSF #bioacoustics

A likely Leiobunum sp. harvestman. Striking colors against the background here. I wish more people looked past the blur of those long legs to see the beautiful animal behind them. #bugsky 🪲🪳🌿

Better together: sibling cooperation matters! Burying beetle larvae consistently benefited from growing up with siblings, both with & without parents. Huber et al. show that sibling interactions can play a key role in the evolution of family life. Read now! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

My photo made it onto the cover of @pnas.org! 🎉You can read the related article about the amazing morphologies of treehoppers increasing their sensitivity to static electricity here: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Velvet Ants of North America! 🐜

The first chapter of my thesis is out now in Journal of Ethology! Check it out if you're interested in taking a deep dive into the vibrational signal of a very cute spider 🕷️〰️ Variation of vibratory performance during courtship of a cursorial spider: doi.org/10.1007/s101...

Successful hunting for these two Thomisus onustus from Dorset. I love the variation in colour of these spiders - everything from white, through various shades of pink, deep burgundy and purple or even bright yellow🩷🤍💛💜 @britishspiders.bsky.social #om-1 #dorsetwildlife #ukwildlife #macrophotography

silver garden orb weaver #spider #spiders #gardenorbweaver #orbweaver #cool #art #digitaldrawing #digitalpainting #digitalart #artmoots #smallartist #ibispaint #green #vibes #sunset

PhD position open with Dr. Jutta Schneider and @mherberstein.bsky.social in Hamburg, on sub-social behavior in crab spiders 🕷️ It even includes field work in Australia! Application deadline is 15 July, more info at the link: www.uni-hamburg.de/en/stellenan...

The exteriors of spider eyes are part of the exoskeleton, so can't move. But in jumping spiders, the internal parts of the large central eyes have muscles that can swivel and twist to help the spider aim its eyes from inside the head. This is a 4-frame.gif showing that internal movement. 🌿🐙🕷️👀

I recently gave an interview for the SNSF magazine about the fascinating world of black widow spiders. Here it is! 🕷️🕸️🦗 www.horizons-mag.ch/2025/06/05/h...

🕷️🌍🕸️ Spiders aren't creepy crawlies—they're ecosystem heroes! From pest control to biotech inspiration to key figures in our collective culture, a new review reveals the many services spiders provide: 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/brv.... (drawing by @jmalumbresolarte.bsky.social)

It's a year of #headstarting for #BalticDunlins! First chicks are hatching and many more are on the way. We're trying to recover the almost extinct population breeding in coastal meadows around the #BothnianBay. Pics by Gerrit Wehrenberg @koivulakari.bsky.social @vmpakanen.bsky.social

Peggy is a true pioneer in the field of Biotremology and has certainly had a big influence on me and my work! I really enjoyed reading more about her story 🦗〰️

Spider of the week is Philaeus chrysops Thorell, 1869

Looking for a PhD project on sexual selection? Join us at UZH! Application deadline: 9 June 2025. jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancie...

Holy smokes! I've got the male too! I'm tearing up. Just heard from the scientist that described the new species and this handsome lad is the male. So awesome! (Chrysometa chuchaqui)

Arachnid of the week: Lola insularis Kratochvíl, 1937

I know spiders aren't everyone's 'thing' but you have to admit, the Nursery-web spider is an attractive species. @britishspiders.bsky.social #spiders #wildlife #nature

Check out this week's "spider of the week" by @35theca2025.bsky.social

🚨 Cool new project alert 🚨 WE- you, me, everyone- need to work together to get important science messages out to people. 4 artists & 3 scientists collab'd on these posters. We hope YOU will put them out in your community. Each poster comes w/info about each topic. Get 'em Squidfacts.bigcartel.com

ETHOLOGY: Mantises can show dramatic deimatic displays to startle potential enemies!🦗💃👀 Burke & Knapwerth found that springbok mantises strategically escalates defences—fleeing first, flaring later. However, egg-laden females are less likely to flee! #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1111/eth....

Second video dropped yesterday! It's a quick 1 min youtube short about my research! #spiders #SciComm #inverts #kqed #research youtube.com/shorts/DnAUn...

If you're looking for a mate, you need to find her the perfect gift - preferably wrapped in silk. A male Nursery Web spider (Pisaura mirabilis) carrying a nuptial gift for a nearby female. @britishspiders.bsky.social

👋 Looking forward to the 117th Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society. Please like and share 🤩

🪺 🐣 Where do birds end up building their nests? A new study by the Küpper group & colleagues at the University of Oulu shows that in ruffs, this is driven by both social and environmental factors: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... @chorlnev.bsky.social

Ant-mimicking treehopper - Cyphonia clavata, shot in situ, Colombia, 2023 This bug is easily one of the wildest mimics I’ve ever seen! An amazing modified pronotum resembles an ant (backwards?), while the green abdomen and wings blend into the plant almost unseen

It is now Spring enough for Sarinda hentzi to be excitedly roaming the forest floor, peering intensely at things and waving the antenniforms like Very Normal Ants 🤎 Sarinda hentzi are unique in that females have thick palps, like male spiders do in pretty much all other spiders. I love them.

So this one as hanging around inside the house yesterday - it’s a Pisaura mirabilis (European Nursery Web Spider). In the last few days it appears the rise in temperature has brought out a big influx of spider appearances around the house - may it continue. #Spiders #Spoods #Invertebrates #Macro

Many ant species show individual specific routes when foraging. @freirilia.bsky.social, @mmoberweiser.bsky.social et al. show that desert ants also reveal idiosyncratic routes, although inhabiting featureless saltpans in North Africa. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/... @jexpbiol.bsky.social

Issue 4 has closed and issue 5 is open. The cover image shows a Tunisian desert ant (Cataglyphis fortis) foraging for dead arthropods in the flat salt pans of Tunisia journals.biologists.com/jeb/issue/22...

Dr. Charles Henry Turner was from Ohio; he earned a BSc and MSc from the University of Cincinnati. He was the first African American to earn a PhD in #entomology, which was at the University of Chicago in 1907. #28DaysOfBlackSTEMHistory #BlackHistoryMonth www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

Increased wind flood frequency leads to decreased nest success of endangered waders in managed shore meadows | www.sciencedirect.co... | Biological Conservation | #ornithology 🪶

Lucky to be a part of this work led by John Ryan @mbarinews.bsky.social ! There is so much here: bioacoustics, participatory science, ML, stable isotopes, at-sea surveys, and more to understand how patterns in 3 whale species (blue, fin, humpback) songs reflect their responses to ecosystem change

I’m really pleased to see this study out recently in @jexpbiol.bsky.social, composed partly of an experiment I helped to develop and run in the field for my master’s thesis. 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

New spider research out in Behavioral Ecology: we show that limited resources can reverse how individuals respond to the presence of competitors and reduce individual differences in competitive phenotypes. 🕷️🕸️📝 academic.oup.com/beheco/advan...

Adorable cover and some familiar names from our Zoology department at @unigreifswald.bsky.social! 🦇

One of my favorite insects to find when I visit the neotropics is leaf-mimicking katydids from the Pterochrozinae subfamily. Not only they are convincing in their leaf mimicry, but many species like this Cycloptera also reveal beautiful fluorescent patterns in UV light!

#EmotionalSupportSpood Goodnight y'all 💚

Non-binary trans person here, with the bilateral gynandromorph amazon ant (Polyergus longicornis alate/worker) I found - and which I really, really need in tattoo form 🖤

Spiders in Hawaii be over-achieving. #arachnids #hawaiilife

Meet my daughters favorite bug — the blushing phantom ❤️. In the cloud forest in Ecuador, her clear wings make a little flutter of pink skip along a few meters in front of us on the hiking trails. They slowly blip along always just out of reach. This is the first I’ve gotten to cooperate for a photo

Look at him 😍. His common name is the Handsome Meadow Katydid (!) and he, and his blue eyes, are in the genus Orchelimum - or - 🎶 Orchestra of the Meadow 🎶. The males fill the air with their calls in the summer and fall here in North America

Hello Bluesky! Follow us for posts on new research, jobs (mostly European) and updates on activities of the society and related organisations! Let's connect! 🦩🦩🦩🦩