366 days ago I started my PhD at the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social. No better time to publish my profile on the Sanger website ⬇️ www.sanger.ac.uk/person/mccul... I tend to have my taxonomic hat on when posting here, but there is a bigger picture!

I've reached 100 British springtail species! This was helped by a recent glasshouse sampling trip, where I added these 4 species. 3 are now in the pipeline to have reference-quality genomes sequenced for the first time, by the @sangerinstitute.bsky.social. More info in the thread below! 🧵1/7

We are excited to attending #ESB2025 find … @arf-mln.bsky.social to chat about beetle genomics @jamesimcc.bsky.social about sedges or springtails evolution Sam Ebdon about distr. of dominance Myself about diptera comparative genomics And all of us to chat about any whacky reproduction #obscuromics

I'm doing an online talk on 16/09 about my MSc thesis, which was all about iNaturalist data for invertebrates in the UK, and the alarmingly high proportion of it which 'falls through the cracks' due to data quality concerns. Please join if interested! Link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/falling-th...

I'm so excited to share that this springtail, one that seems to have rapidly appeared in graveyards and gardens across the UK, now has a proper name: Entomobrya petri! I hope this will be the first of many new species descriptions, allowing us to track our rapidly changing springtail fauna. 🧵⬇️

James McCulloch (National Springtail Recorder) discusses the constantly increasing species list for UK Collembola.

This coming Tuesday lunchtime! I’m looking forward to talking springtails, speciation, and cryptic diversity. Sign up! ⬇️

Yesterday we had earthworm cocoons, today I bring you springtail spermatophores! Springtails, like many soil invertebrates, reproduce by a male leaving these structures (sperm-rich fluid on a stalk), which the female will sniff out and collect to fertilise her eggs. Romantic! #SoilBiodiversity 🧪

British Springtails: How Many Species Are There? Join @jamesimcc.bsky.social on 15 July as he reveals how genome data and citizen science are rewriting UK biodiversity. 🎟️ Book FREE: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1359900281... @royentsoc.bsky.social @fieldstudiesc.bsky.social @nbntrust.bsky.social 🌱 🌍 🧪

Good news! >6000 springtail records have been imported from iRecord and are now available on the NBN Atlas: species.nbnatlas.org/species/NBNS... Massive thanks to @duerden.bsky.social for his investment in verifying iRecord records. Keep them coming!

New to Britain! These springtails are Dicyrtomina signata, a European species that's never previously been seen in the UK. I found these while out and about in Wanstead Park, London (with @josscarr.bsky.social, @nmaybury4.bsky.social). One to look out for!

And that's my 4th record of Entomobrya nr. imitabilis (See below), this time right from the garden! Beautiful little species, waiting anxiously for updates...

In 1924, Womersley referred to Orchesella flavescens as "the most magnificent spring-tail". Today, 101 years later, the first reference genome for this species has been assembled and published, from a specimen I collected at Wytham Woods! wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/10-...

Let’s see if we can give it a name before too long!

Everything is ready for this year's @peterhousecam.bsky.social Biology Symposium. It looks like being another set of exceptionally interesting presentations. 🧪

🚨Registration open🚨 1st - 6th of June, me, Katie Jenike, @rayanchikhi.bsky.social and Gene Myers will run a week long workshop on k-mers for biodiversity genomics organised by @connectingscience.bsky.social at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social. Join us & get equipped to wrestle large genomic datasets!

A rainy afternoon looking for Smews near St Ives (Cambs) was sadly smewless. But this was somewhat compensated by us (specifically @joeparham19.bsky.social) finding this first-winter drake Lesser Scaup (right). A vagrant from North America and a new sp. for me! + some drake goldeneyes! 🪶

Excellent news - thanks for taking this on James and look forward to seeing how things develop. The late Peter Shaw would have been delighted to see the scheme continue in good hands.

Some very good news. Time to go out and find some more springtails to record 😀

Send me records: I am excited to be taking on the role of national springtail recorder. I have huge shoes to fill, but I hope to continue the progress Peter Shaw made in understanding the taxonomy and biology of the UK's #springtails. www.brc.ac.uk/scheme/colle...

We're halfway through the Bug of the Year '25 contest, and the Giant Springtail is still in the lead! BUT there's still four weeks of voting left, so get on it! Vote here, and please share with your friends and family: bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-here-20... #TeamGiantSpringtail #Invertebrate 🧪

Today was a day for skulking reedbed birds: two Bitterns and three Water Rails at @wwtworldwide.bsky.social's London Wetland Centre in the winter sun ☀️🪶

Our review is out in Nature Reviews Genetics! rdcu.be/d5AY2 We show how phylogeny-based methods can resolve the problem of non-independence in genomic datasets. These methods must be considered an essential part of the comparative genomics toolkit. @lauriebelch.bsky.social @stuwest.bsky.social

This may look like an amorphous blob, but it’s an exciting one (and new for me)! This is the <1mm springtail Neelus murinus. The second photo gives a sense of scale in comparison to my gloved finger. Let’s hope we can sequence its genome, and reveal what secrets it’s hiding #springtails

Feeling lucky to have been able to watch this drake Goosander expertly fishing in the rapids of the River Mersey in Manchester yesterday 🪶 The last one I saw was on the pond at the Sanger Institute last month… a little lost!

A lifer for me in Austria! It has been a joy watching a flock of c50 Alpine Choughs coming to drink meltwater from the gutters of neighbouring buildings each morning. Apparently this species holds the record for breeding at the highest altitude! 🪶

It may have been -12°C with a foot of snow on the ground in Seefeld, Austria, but that didn't seem to be an issue for this Western Conifer Seed Bug (Leptoglossus occidentalis)... They often hibernate indoors, but this one seemed satisfied with the outside wall!

An adorable fly from South Africa this past summer - a species of Atriadops, in the family Nemestrinidae (which has no representatives in the U.K.). Despite its cute appearance, its larvae are endoparasitoids of grasshoppers and praying mantises!

Having long lost the motivation to post on Twitter, I have quite the backlog of photos to share! Top of my list is this comical shot of a pair of Iberian Azure-winged Magpies curious as to what’s unfolding in front of them 🪶

As giant springtails age, they grow more robust and develop longer spikes on their antennae & backs. Nobody knows how long they can live for, probably a few years, but this gnarled Holacanthella duospinosa has all the hallmarks of a long innings!🧪 #SoilBiodiversity #SoilEcology #Macrophotography

A nippy November day and face-to-face views of two beautiful Black-necked Grebes at Walthamstow Wetlands this morning 🌅 #londonbirds

pelagicpublishing.com/products/pan... In the end phase of a first draft of this book. Exciting!