Very bad news. Screwworm appears to have made it to Texas, as was predicted. These parasites eat the living flesh of cattle, cause horrible pain, and can ultimately kill them. Yesterday, USDA Chief Brooke Rollins categorically denied that screwworm was close to the border.

Ant Course is back! This year, in Mexico:

This is fascism. Tactics straight out of the playbook of the Nazi's, Lysenko, and North Korea. Science doesn't have borders and setting up "us vs. them" hurts everyone. www.science.org/content/arti...

🪲 A PhD position in my lab will open soon! Work includes Caribbean fieldwork, visits to major European entomological collections, and cutting-edge morphology, phylogenomics & museomics. If you’re interested in beetle evolution and biodiversity research, consider applying! 🔬🌍

The only kind of bees I like...

Our new paper led by Christian Weinrich (PhD student, Andrew Forbes' lab at University of Iowa) is out in Insect Systematics and Diversity. We used unsupervised machine learning + UCE data to infer species limits in eurytomid parasitoids on US oak gall wasps—all initially thought to be Eurytoma.

Come join us in CDMX this August and share your love for everything #Hymenoptera 🐜🐝! Abstract deadline has been extended to May 31st! 🧪 www.hymenopterists.org/ish-2026-con...

The last analysis that was running for 10+ days on the HPC finally finished before the server going offline for maintenance tomorrow.

@romtoronto.bsky.social opens today, May 16th, Bees: A story of Survival, an immersive exhibition using art & science to help you imagine life from a 🐝's perspective. From the National Museums of Liverpool & Wolfgang Buttress. I'm bee-side myself that my image was chosen for the ads #bees 🐝1/2

My new paper with @gdarlim.bsky.social and @hoehna.bsky.social is now out in Proceedings B! We set out to compare two different approaches to time-calibrate a molecular phylogeny: traditional node calibrations, and unresolved FBD... @royalsocietypublishing.org doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Just dropped: our Mexico oak diversification paper made the cover of @pnas.org! Beautiful photo of Quercus rugosa, netleaf oak, by friend & colleague M. Socorro González-Elizondo, to accompany PhD candidate Kieran Althaus's excellent, deeply collaborative study. Enjoy! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Smithsonian Fish Curator position announcement! Note the application dates of May 12 – June 2, 2026. Should be posted here tomorrow: trustcareers.si.edu#js-careers-j...

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

BOOSTING this again for #AAPI, Asian American Pacific Islander month! I am the first Chinese American in to be among this august if obscure assemblage of 20 #echinoderm taxonomists! and the number continues to grow!

7 years ago I was incredibly lucky to join @hoosierflyman.bsky.social on the great #Seabattical Today, you can read in full print @genetics-gsa.bsky.social the description of a NEW SPECIES of Drosophila parasitoid and it's really unique biology. I just happened to be the guy who found it! 🐝🏝️🪰

IQ-TREE 3: Phylogenomic Inference Software using Complex Evolutionary Models academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

my paper on pogonomyrmex harvester ant biogeography with bob johnson and @corriemoreau.bsky.social came out today! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/MEB3T9...

During #SSB2026 @bruno-soares.bsky.social gave an excellent talk about the difficulty Global South researchers have describing new species because they often have to view types in US/European museums. Here is one solution we came up, published today: academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

I love going gall hunting this time of the year in the DMV area!

This is now published in G3: doi.org/10.1093/g3jo... 🧪

U.S. President Donald Trump has fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. https://scim.ag/4cxQWhl

So excited for the @entsocamerica.bsky.social Virtual Symposium, Apr 27-29! There's still time to register for FREE for this international event, with special sessions on IPM, taxonomy, visualization, and biocontrol! 🧪🦋🐝🐜🦟🪰🪳 entsoc.org/membership/b...

New research in #RESSystematicEnt Phylogenomic analysis of #Chelonus (Hymenoptera: #Braconidae): Systematics and coevolution with endogenous bracoviriforms doi.org/10.1111/syen.70047 #UCEs #Phylogenomics @gkergoat.bsky.social @wileyecology.bsky.social

The Forest Service’s proposed closure of research facilities in Hawaiʻi, including the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry and a biocontrol lab, threatens years of research on biocontrol agents and disease-resistant ʻōhiʻa strains, impacting efforts to protect Hawaiʻi’s forests and watersheds.

🚨New PrePrint🚨 I am excited to share this comparative analysis of transposable elements in medusozoa genomes led by graduate student Ayanna Mays 🧬🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Sad to report the passing of George Melika, the prolific world authority on gall wasps and the unofficial "king of the galls". He will be sorely missed. To see some of his contributions to the world of cynipidology: scholar.google.com/citations?us...

Still accepting applicants for a postdoc! Here's the evoldir link if you're interested: evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi... Please reach out! Share with a friend!

Hey you! I am still on the market for jobs this fall! I am an entomologist who specializes in inclusive biology teaching (15+ semesters of collegiate instruction) and a broad array of research skills spanning collection & ID, molecular work (RNAi, Genomics), and phenotyping (behavior, physiology)🧪

I'm hiring a postdoc (start date flexible) and a PhD student (for Fall 2027) to work in any area of computational phylogenetics! More info here: mhibbins.github.io I will be attending both PEQG and Evolution in June, so please reach out if you want to chat at these meetings!

I am not a podcast person by any means, but I'm excited about this series, and starting strong with my long time mentor Mike Gates!

So cool to see my Swedish microhymenoptera colleagues Emma Kärrnäs and Julia Stigenberg featured in here: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The Chinese banyan stem gall first found in Hawaii in 2012 finally has a name! Meet Josephiella manana, and its associate Gibsonoma kuewa. Fun small project with @kmagnacca.bsky.social in sorting out some of these introduced micro wasps of Hawaii. Link to paper: tinyurl.com/ych93swd

It's always exciting to see images of the critters that I've described live, even if it is a bit blurry. This is Kavayva bodoquenensis, a rare? Neotropical genus of eurytomids associated with Guarea (Meliaceae) seeds. www.inaturalist.org/observations...

North America (south to the Darién Gap) is the best continent, judged solely on the basis of gall wasps.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could say goodbye to TurboTax and file your taxes for free, online, and directly with the IRS? I have a bill to get that done.

It's looking increasingly likely that I'll be hiring a 3-year computational pop-gen postdoc/PhD-level scientific programmer to start this Fall (2026). If you or someone you know is defending soon, and looking for a position, please DM/write to me! Thanks!

Job alert! Post-doc position available in the Tsutsui lab at UC Berkeley. I'm specifically looking for someone optimize and scale RNA interference for invasive ant control and eradication. Happy to take questions at [email protected]. Spread the word! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05325

MBE is excited to launch our newest Call for Papers on the Major Transitions of Life, covering all aspects of phylogenomic research. 🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/pages/call-for-papers-on-the-major-transitions-of-life Guest Editors: Davide Pisani Anja Spang #evobio #molbio #phylogenetics

Join us here at @laurentianu.bsky.social as we rebuild our ecology/evolution group. We are hiring an assistant professor in animal ecology Working with me is a treat, so that's a bonus not mentioned in the ad. laurentian.ca/about/career...

Meet some brand new oak apple galls from Mexico! We described five new Amphibolips species, including A. megakokka which produces the largest known gall by a single wasp in the Americas (>11cm in diameter). mapress.com/zt/article/v...

Open postdoc position in my lab at Cornell, conducting comparative and experimental studies on transcriptomic responses to diet and toxins, utilizing the milkweed-insect community. Background in molecular bio & herbivory desired. academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/31867

📢ISH SPONSORED MEMBERSHIP OFFER! 📌Sponsorship is primarily intended for members who are unable to afford membership and based in a country other than the 30 countries with the highest HDI. 📆Application Deadline: March 31st 🔗Application form: www.hymenopterists.org/apply-for-sp...

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

Gorgeous fly but ugh I hate the name so much, apparently the naming right was won at the 2021 Australian Museum Foundation Gala Dinner auction...🤑

On #TaxonomistAppreciationDay I want to highlight some of the recent new species that I've described along with colleagues, many are from the global south where much of this diversity is from (and still awaits discover). First up, two species of herb gall wasps and a parasitoid from Sichuan, China.

My big monograph is finally out in @ejtaxonomy.bsky.social right on #taxonomistappreciationday! 169 new species of flat wasps from Australia, many of them with remarkable head modifications for seeking their hosts. So excited to see this published after 8 years, available free and open access. 🧪

So you are using IQ-TREE to estimate a tree for "deep time" phylogenetics using amino acid alignments. There is a lot of confusion about how to test model fit. Here are some suggestions.