Was just talking yesterday about greenwashing by big corporates. Google (claiming to be sustainable) are planning to build a data centre on one of Britain's rarest habitats, home to many scarce specialist invertebrates - help Buglife fight this. Sign here: 🐝🦋 you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...

Saw this queen toda 💛🤍🖤 Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennechi) #HertsSpiders

Today I was blessed with the experience of sharing my lunch with a Blue Long-horned Snailkiller fly (Sepedon sphegea) . Some people feed the pigeons... #Invertefest #FliesofBritainandIreland

An extraordinary ichnuemon wasp from the Norfolk #Brecks the other day - Amblyjoppa fuscipennis aka the Small Elephant-botherer. Presumably the English name is a reference to parasitising Small Elephant Hawkmoths, rather than actual Elephants! #TeamEnto

Female mason wasp Ancistrocerus scoticus building mud cells in relief carving on gravestone in St Agnes churchyard, Scilly

Very pleased to have seen my first Yellow-faced Blowfly (Cynomyia mortorum) today on a Herts Invertebrate Project visit to Natural England's Hexton Estate. King of his chalky Hill chasing off the other less glamorous blowflies. #FliesofBritainandIreland #Entomology @naturalengland.bsky.social

Etymology of the day: spiders were once known as ‘attercops’, or ‘poison-heads’, because it was believed most spiders were venomous. The ‘cop’ element became the ‘cob’ in ‘cobweb’.

Lesser Bulb Fly (Eumerus funeralis) a small hoverfly is common in our garden & develops in Spanish Bluebells, also seen on its leaves was the Large Narcissus Fly a bumblebee mimic #FliesofBritainandIreland bit.ly/4dqQI8Z @bbowt.bsky.social @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social @gailashton.bsky.social

#InsectWeek is coming! Insect Week is your annual chance to share and celebrate the fascinating world of insects. This year, we're Standing Tall for the Small and encouraging everyone to take action for insects. #StandTallForTheSmall from 23-29 June 🐞🔽 www.insectweek.org

Went to my local country park to look for solitary bees today and my first Brown Argus of the year was a nice bonus.

New research from our Centre for Ecology and Conservation has found that the brain of a wasp is capable of remarkably sophisticated scheduling decisions. Read the full article below. news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-e...

Picture-winged Flies pages are now laid out for our NEW #FliesofBritainandIreland due Autumn 2025 - pre-order now at bit.ly/4dqQI8Z & save £££s on published price @gailashton.bsky.social @bbowt.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social

Several Box Bugs and Common Green Shieldbugs, having a drink and enjoying each others company in a Winter Honeysuckle bush yesterday #Invertefest

A quality animal today on @me🦛 Animal #632 🐻 I figured it out in 8 guesses! 🟥🟥🟥🟧🟨🟨🟨🟩 🔥 2 | Avg. Guesses: 11 metazooa.com #metazooa

Lords of the flies: the unsurpassed level of ecological diversity within dipteran migrants. Read about it here news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-e... and in Biological Reviews here doi.org/10.1111/brv..... New research from @uniexecec.bsky.social with @willleohawkes.bsky.social & Myles Menz

Colorful flies 🌈 Phasia hemiptera (Tachinid fly, Wanzenfliege) Ectophasia crassipennis (Tachinid fly, Breitflügelige Raupenfliege) Lucilia sericata (Green bottle fly, Goldfliege) Myathropa florea (Batman hoverfly, Totenkopfschwebfliege)

Happy Monday everyone, some verges not in site lines or pathways were mown last week, ugly looking brown dried plant debris, on the other side this delight full of #dandelions other wild flowers and #pollinators. Please like and retweet if you prefer the flowers 🙏🐝🐞🌼

Spoiled for choice? Brimstone #butterfly at #AshlawncuttingLNR @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bcwarwickshire.bsky.social @dandelionappre1.bsky.social

Love this gorgeous new art installation local to me by Julia Fonnereau celebrating local #wildflowers , #butterflies and a #SolitaryBee! Though somewhat ironically on a carpark considering the title "You don't know what you've got til it's gone"! #WildlifeArt

Female True Bumblebee Identification Guides for Ireland (mostly). Please feel free to share, print out and use to help ID the Irish bumblebees CC BY-SA-NC 4.0

The Wildlife Garden Directory is celebrating its first anniversary! If you're a wildlife friendly gardener, why not join and connect with people who need your skills? And if you're looking for help in your garden, use the directory to find a wildlife-gardener: wildlifegardendirectory.org.uk

🚨 #InsectResearch Ethics Survey – Your Input Matters 🦗 We're gathering views on #InsectWelfare in UK research. If you're involved in UK #InsectResearch, we want to hear from you! Read more and share your thoughts 🔽 buff.ly/T3xgWvv #EthicsInScience #InsectEthics #AnimalResearch

Yes we should inspire children to value and protect wildlife, but these are false dichotomies. There's massive overlap in the venn diagram of kids who like bugs and dinosaurs (I'm one of them!) and those who like unicorns and ponies. It's not an either or. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Try making a clay hotel for hairy-footed flower bees. They are just emerging from hibernation, so now is the perfect time. youtu.be/UJSK12ArWP4

The @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social & the #RoyalHorticulturalSociety are championing hoverflies! Finally the light is shining on the Diptera, highlighting the pollinating adults, & the predatory/decomposer larvae within Syrphidae www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/wild-ab... @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

With spider activity increasing, we're looking at spider ID resources, starting today at the beginner's end of the spectrum with our 17 Factsheets on common and conspicuous species - freely available to read online or print from www.britishspiders.org.uk/factsheets. #spiders #arachnids #arachnology

A new #bee for me! A male White-faced Mason Bee (Osmia cornuta), one of several drinking from Mahonia in a pub garden in St Margarets, Herts. Never managed to spot one in London but nice to see them spreading into the home counties. As good an excuse as any to yoink myself back into social media.

RIP to this iconic lad on today's bug hunt who ate a fly, had sex and got eaten in front of an audience of 4-5 year olds.

Hairy Shieldbug resplendent on an Early Purple Orchid perch in the wildlife garden this afternoon. Just glorious! 💜

Dad's taxi 🚕 🐌

Legend! An informed conservationist getting on with it and doing what needs to be done to boost biodiversity in Britain's beleaguered landscape. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The evening light did make up for today's weather conditions a bit. I'm adoring the fresh leaf colours in my view from the living room.

A very popular bird turd in the grassland across the road. There are microhabitats and then there are microhabitats! The Wolf Spider was just trying to scootch in to bask. They don't eat Ladybirds like the 16-spots here.

Amazes me that one of our biggest, burliest insect pollinators manage to feed from the pinhole openings of dainty little Forget-me-nots yet that's exactly what this storm - worn queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee managed to do when I placed her on them in my garden.

The patch of Lesser Celandine in my parent's garden continues to spread and bring cheer. They were happy to see a Comma butterfly on it this week.

The Kingcups/Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris) are coming into flower at Bat Willow Hurst, Herts this weekend. This one appears to have a smut fungus on one of its flowers. #WildFlowerHour

My first #Beefly (Bombylius major) of the year seemed to be enacting the Kafka Metamorphosis meme. Perhaps knocked off his perch in the changeable weather. Easily coaxed him onto my finger, then into some vegetation.

Please read the sign when talking to entomologists 👇🐝

Lovely couple of days teaching my home-based insect art students. Our bee and wasp term has now finished. Here's some of the fabulous finished results...dead proud of all them. 💚 Next term, it's Dragonflies & Damselflies. Can't wait! 🙌 🐡🐙🪲🐝

It's Leap Day. Post a frog.🐸 This Glass Frog joined us group of biologists one morning at Waita Lodge, Ecuador. Never had I ever met a creature so pure 🥰

Urban Ents in Bishop's Stortford. These pollarded Horse Chestnuts look less like they're shaking their fists at the sky and more like they're poised to bludgeon passersby (or to storm Isengard).

Good morning

A very early Tawny Mining Bee, Andrena fulva, on flowering rosemary in the garden, Worcester 20.02.24. 🐝💚🍃

Doing some hedge work this week and feeling disturbing the little things just trying to sleep through the winter. Some consolation that in a couple of years it will be thicker and an even better refuge.

My 1st Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) of the year on crocuses in the work wildlife garden. Absolutely smothered in pollen. Distinguished from the queen Buff Tails (which are usually the real earliest species) by its smaller size and bright orange bottom.

I love this story so much as a former bug zoo manager. Patient has made a full recovery 🙂 www.chron.com/life/wildlif...

Oh my! It's happening!! 🐝 I need to get some Pulmonaria for my new garden stat!

Well hello there you two! Yesterday's warmth coaxed out my first butterflies of the year in my new garden! The ivy-covered shed is great overwintering habitat for invertebrates. This Comma and Nursery Web Spider had just emerged to warm up and 2 Brimstones were doing laps too fast for me to capture!

How sweet is this little charity shop find? Long-tailed Tits painted on an eggshell. One of my favourite British birds. I just had to have it.