"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Today I discovered that this industrious aerial yellowjacket has been stripping the wood from the fancy moulding on my cavity nest boxes. That moulding was entirely blue last week. I'm simultaneously impressed and exasperated. Happy #WaspWednesday 🐝🧪 #entomology #yellowjacket

My first two turnips of the year! These Hakurei turnips have a softer flesh and are perfect for biting into fresh, just like an apple. #turnips #alaskagrown #gardening

Soaking up the sunshine in my own "wasp farm" for #WaspWednesday 🐝 I love the way Evans writes about wasps; he's objective, observant, but best of all is the way his admiration and affection for aculeates lights up his prose. Wasp Farm (1963) by Howard Ensign Evans #hymenoptera #wasps #entomology

(1/2) Resembling the tiny parts of an impossibly intricate and eye-catching timepiece, strewn from a watchmakers toolkit, these are in fact fossil Crinoids, Corals, Bryozoans and Brachiopods.

Excited to find this large marble butterfly on my survey transect! The Fish & Wildlife Service is coordinating butterfly surveys with partners across Alaska in an effort to map their distribution, due to the recent petition for their listing as threatened by Xerces 🦋 #Lepidoptera #XercesSociety 🧪

Absolutely delighted to see the @biodivlibrary.bsky.social listed in the credits of the series "This is a Gardening Show" hosted by Zack Galifianakis! #ILoveBHL #thisisagardeningshow 🧪

Happy #WaspWednesday to this cutie little Passaloecus cuspidatus that has been gathering up every aphid out of my currant bushes 💛 #hymenoptera #entomology 🧪

How delightful are these pollinator signs at Georgeson Botanical Garden in Fairbanks, AK! Illustrated by Renee Nowicki 🐝🪰🦋 #GeorgesonBotanicalGarden #AlaskaPollinatorWeek #entomology 🧪

Beauty, buzz, and a little sting in time for Alaska Pollinator Week! Just a little yellowjacket appreciation for this year's pollinator week 🐝 www.adn.com/opinions/202... #hymenoptera #yellowjacket #alaskapollinatorweek #anchoragedailynews 🧪

Happy Alaska Pollinator Week!4 species of aerial yellowjackets (out of AK's total 7) are to thank for my harvest of currants this year #hymenoptera #yellowjacket #pollination 🐝🧪

New Crabro, who dis? Crabro nigriceps is now added to Alaska's checklist of known species! Shield? 10/10, love a good shield #hymenoptera #crabronidae #Alaska 🐝🧪

If you can only do the science that the political elite want you to do, that's not really doing science.

Did you know #Alaska has over 30 species of lady beetle? Here's a great article for Alaskans who want to make their garden #bug friendly. Thanks @awenninger.bsky.social www.uaf.edu/ces/publicat...

One Saturday I took a climb in north Queensland I met an ant up there who bit me on the hand Punk rock ant, can i take a pic Punk rock ant, your mohawk's sick Let's get a science grant Just you and me, punk rock ant

The Man Who Loved Wasps - a nice collection of essays by pompilid taxonomist Howard E. Evans. This collection covers a variety of topics, but mostly insects and birds. Perfect for passing time waiting for the fish to bite. #Hymenoptera #entomology #naturalhistory 🐝🧪

I met the cutest little sea star yesterday while fishing for sablefish in Prince William Sound. About 1"/2.5 cm across, so tiny! It came up from 2400 ft, quite a journey. Someone on iNaturalist identified it as the cookie-cutter sea star, Ctenodiscus crispatus #seastar #Alaska #deepsea

My department just dropped their new sock line: an ode to research on the use of kelp in livestock feed. Hilarious? Yes. Oddly charming? Also yes. 🧦🐄 #UAF #sciencefashion

My tiniest niece insists that it's only a fart if it makes a sound, so for her sake I hope Vachal knew what he was doing and this is, in fact, a very noisy bee.

So excited to find these two books from the Natural History Literature Rescue in my mailbox today! NHLR keeps books and other literature out of the trash and in the hands of folks who can use them. Adopt a book and/or send them your books! goodoldpaper.org #naturalhistory #goodoldpaper #literature 🧪

I had the joy of watching this little aphid wasp over the course of a couple weeks last June. So many trips gathering resin! I reared out the offspring of this tunnel over the past month: mostly Passaloecus cuspidatus with a few Omalus aeneus for good measure #hymenoptera #entomology #Alaska 🐝🧪

I love reading acknowledgments sections for their little bits of warmth and humor. This inexplicable "non-endorsement" of Special Kitty Cat Food, in a study which as far as I understand makes absolutely no use of cat food whatsoever, is truly 10/10. #entomology 🧪

Hello and welcome to my bee pit: a phrase made possible by this year's unusually cold spring 🐝 I'm asking this scattering of spent coffee grounds to work some real magic here. #beekeeping #alaska

Fairbanks airport will finish up with zero days with a high temperature above freezing between November 1 & March 31. That hasn't happened before in Fairbanks’ 120-year climate history. Previous fewest was 2 days above freezing in 2006-07. The average for Nov-Mar is 16 days. #akwx #weather #Climate

Too cold for bug catching? No problem. I'll just drag tree bits indoors to see what wakes up. #entomology #alaska 🦟🧪

So relieved to see this! All too often I find myself working with an insect that was last referenced in an obscure piece of literature from over a century ago. The BHL is my go-to for those pieces and I am so grateful for all their work archiving these precious entomological treasures! #ILoveBHL 🐛🧪

Just added this entomological dictionary to my word processor and am absolutely delighted at all the words that no longer give me a red squiggly! Highly recommend, and it's free to use! Built by my friend @ahaberski.bsky.social #entomology #dictionary 🪲🧪

Enjoying this book about hyms by Eric Grissell very much. I especially love his interpretation that the etymology of the order is based on the hamuli; he references the parallels to the name Hymenaios, the Greek god of marriage. "Membranous wing" has always seemed suspiciously non-specific. 🐝 🐜

Visited Delta, AK this weekend to teach a pollinator workshop and I got to visit a coworker's yak farm after!! This is Flora, she is just 1 year old and I LOVE her ♥️ #babyyak #alaskalove

An article about a recent community science project on the fireweed flower gall midge in Alaska! These galls caught my attention while doing field work for a pollinator research project but turned into a project all of their own! www.akentsoc.org/doc/AKES_new... #entomology #Alaska #cecidomyiidae 🧪🪰

A headlamp set on the table works great for when you want to prep mini hyms for mounting at the kitchen table instead of at your desk (filter paper underneath the mini petri for contrast)✨ #hymenoptera #entomology

Seed-feeding chalcids are always a favorite to rear out; getting a whole adult wasp out of a tiny seed is nearly magical! This tiny rose seed chalcid (Megastigmus nigrovariegatus) emerged this week from a wild rose seed (Rosa acicularis) collected last month. 😍 🧪 #chalcidoidea #entomology #Alaska

On today's episode of Moss Makeover, a moss-covered boulder gets brushed by an entomologist who decided to take a quick look for Boreus snow scorpionflies during a fishing trip. Sadly she did not find any Boreus but this moss looks really great. #entomology #mecoptera #Alaska 🧪

The world's cutest puzzle!! A gift from @danasaur406.bsky.social ♥️ 🐛🐛🐛 #thecaterpillarlab #entomology #lepidoptera

Anyone know of a good key to Nearctic dryinids? This one has been tricky to key out using Hymenoptera of the World, but seems to be either Anteoninae or Gonatopodinae subfamily. Specimen from Anchorage, Alaska. More details in comments. #hymenoptera #chrysidoidea #dryinidae

A little Sunday morning coffee and my least favorite bug chore. 500 points later and all I have to show for it is a very sore palm and what appears to be a pile of 12 points 🐝 #entomology #entomologistchores

Putting a little art into entomology with STEM night elementary kiddos! Love to see their creativity in action 🦋🧪 #entomology #scienceforkids #scienceisart

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science! 🧪 It's hard for me to resist a good insect collection opportunity, here I am taking a break between shrimp pot sets to do some bee collecting for the Alaska Bee Atlas 🐝 #entomology (and in my hand-knit fisherman's Gansey, of course) #knitting

I feel like there are enough moths in the world to open a portal to a completely different dimension. Just staggering amounts of moths.

Some highly photogenic flower galls on fireweed made by the fireweed flower gall midge in Alaska 🌸 My fly mom skills were put to the test but we pulled through and the adults were used to redescribe these Holarctic cuties 🪰 bioone.org/journals/pro...