This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

So pleased to have been included on this paper, which is all PhD candidate Sierra Jaeger from the LoPresti lab! @ericlopresti.bsky.social

now its Frontiers in Plant Sciences' turn... 3,288 articles this year so far (most are fine - many are not) english.elpais.com/science-tech...

my post-break brain couldn't do any serious writing today... but i got through a lot of moths!

flannel moth caterpillars (megalopygids, puss caterpillars) are amongst the strangest we have. but, even stranger is the fact that they make LITTLE BOWL-SHAPED POOP. how have i not learned this? why does this not seem to be all over the internet?

google scholar alerted me to a paper citing a (great) Abronia paper - weirdly it was on fish biology. and with that i have happened into my first published and obviously used AI for referencing paper...

8 emails later, no resolution and the springer OA people are giving me the run around. $3900!

I had a solicited commentary "accepted" at a Springer Journal and now they are asking me to pay a publication fee. What an utterly sleazy move - here, do something for us and we'll make you pay for it.

A couple years ago, I found a weird wasp moth - sent it to Bill Taft and Anthony Cognato at Michigan State and lo and behold, it is a new species. Introducing Synanthedon nielseni!

A+ bike commuting and A+ bikes in the lab today (flat bar road bike! crosscheck with tri bars! old mtb gravel conversion! a small wheeled 80's Terry!)

Psuedoscorpion hitching a ride on a moth that I pinned yesterday!

Our research got a really nice write-up in the Post and Courier today (excellent work Toby for the article and Andy for the photos!!!)

The legendary USGS Bee Lab is being shut down. The 2026 budget proposal defunds the Ecosystem Mission Area, which supported the lab. If their science helped your work, there’s still time to make your voice heard. Read below. (1/4) 🧪 #pollinators #Pollinators #USGS #Entomology #Hymenoptera 🪲🪳

I finally conquered Gravity's Rainbow during a many month field season in Peru (2011). I had to read it maybe 6 times to finally get through - and *get* - it, but ended up appreciating it. Wish I could spend days of undivided attention on this one. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/b...

If anyone in Charleston wants to see me blabber about moths and natural history, come say hi!

A tropical moth ended up in my trap in South Carolina last weekend! While these are known to occasionally wander, never really thought seeing one was a possibility. (Eudocima apta - a "fruit-piercing" moth).

First lab paper out in a long time - this one looking at pollination/pollinators/floral volatiles of an AWESOME species of sand verbena from South Texas. All credit to my wonderful grad student Sierra and collaborators. (more photos below) www.pollinationecology.org/index.php/jp...

Even if most of what I am quoted here is for calling these caterpillars cute, I am a real scientist, I swear. www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/n...

As my friend @drshepherd2013.bsky.social says, asking why we need a National Weather Service when we have apps and the Weather Channel is like asking why we need potato farmers when we can buy fries at McDonalds.

NSF accomplishes its mission primarily by giving grants. In a $10B budget request, NSF asked for $500M in 'Agency Operations and Award Management', so that's already HIGHLY EFFICIENT... >95% of funds go to research and STEM education programs nationwide. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00_NSF...

Two Way Street. A reworked version I made from a police produced victim and youth blaming PSA.

Ways I spelled this one moth's name in my database. None of them are right.

Rest In Peace, Tom Robbins, and long live goofiness!

The world sucks, but my Gunnar is back on the road. Little victory.

My take on listing #monarchs under the #ESA cornellsun.com/2025/02/04/a...

Plants happy, protected from herbivores inside...

When I was younger, I naively assumed that every non-beetle species on earth had grad students doing this at some point, and it came as a great shock that there were bugs in my yard that NO ONE HAD STUDIED. I’m so glad the shrew got some!

New candidate for silliest common name for a moth: Hampson's Salad (thanks Tanner, for finding it) www.inaturalist.org/observations...

My goal of this race was simply to keep an even pace - didn't think I'd nail it like that!

Put my bike up on the smart trainer (a Kinetic) today for the first time this winter; company out of business, can't log in to app on new phone, and this means it is totally dead. (Long reddit threads on this). Modern technology sucks.

"Extinction of [field] experience among ecologists" Recommended reading for educators and researchers. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

I've been paying more attention. I have changed my mind - have had saltmarsh traps with a dozen or more in them, too (and surely they aren't eating Spartina!) - I think they move en masse. This also would explain how they colonized from South Florida to Canada so quickly.

Great news - now UK and everyone else needs to do the same and start supporting society and not for profit publishers.

now wait just a minute, are you telling me there's a Marco Lo Presti who studies sticky silk and an Eric LoPresti who studies sticky plants?? @ericlopresti.bsky.social what is HAPPENING here

I've been buying Edmund's Oast's IPA (Bound by Time) as my go to IPA since it has moths on it... and they way upped their entomological/ecological game on this one!!!

Caught this Chaetaglaea fergusoni over break - the first one in SC since Doug Ferguson himself discovered it in 1967 - just a couple kilometers from the site. (Described in 1997, with Ferguson's specimen the earliest known - he no doubt knew it was something new - 30 years later it got a name).

🐺 x 🌷 interactions! Amazing photos by Adrien Lesaffre. Canids as pollinators? Nectar foraging by Ethiopian wolves may contribute to the pollination of Kniphofia foliosa esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

I get 100's and 100's of Atteva each month in my traps. There is no Ailanthus anywhere nearby (like, none within a km, maybe farther) - are they really really really dispersive for a tiny moth? or are they eating something else, too? I'm inclined to believe the latter. #moths

#Herbarium specimens reveal links between leaf shape of Capsella bursa-pastoris & climate New #AJB research by Asia Hightower, Daniel Chitwood & Emily Josephs doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #evolution

Can I race 4 cross races in a weekend? If I do, will I be able to walk the next day?

Increasing rate of moth species establishment in Great Britain over 120 years shows no deceleration. Implications for biosecurity and conservation @royentsoc.bsky.social resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Join us!! I'm recruiting a postdoc and grad student to work with us on parallel trait evolution, quant and pop gen, and speciation in penstemons. Find out more about our research interests here: wessingerlab.github.io . Informal inquiries welcome!

The first two of these are drawings of things I couldn't photograph for #iNaturalist and the last is part of a caterpillar guide I drew recently. If you want to see the whole guide, it's at www.inaturalist.org/journal/bugb...

Was very happy to be asked to write about how wonderful moths are for The Guardian. Link below #TeamMoth #Nature #MothsMatter #Wildlife #Insects #Moths www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Limacodid caterpillars are spiffy.

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT Look who we caught today! It’s a hatch year Eastern Towhee (born this year). A female would be brown and a male would be black, and this bird has female characteristics on one side and male on the other— a likely bilateral gynandromorph!!!

Apply for the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in EEB at MSU! Collaborate with multiple EEB labs on your own project(s). Fellowships are 2 years, $65k/year + benefits, moving expenses, and research funds. International apps welcome. Deadline: 11/4/24 eeb.msu.edu/initiatives/...

reconned a gravel race today - course is way to sketchy to race - long fast downhills with huge diagonal ruts/blind corners... am i getting old/cranky? (signed up awhile back... bad idea, not doing it).

Kathryn Shulz's beautiful piece on Norman Maclean included this hilarious anecdote. I think I'm going to reply to all MDPI, Frontiers In, etc. with some version of this from now on...

What we've been up to here - Allie one of a crew of wonderful/talented/interested/curious undergrads/techs that are making this project happen www.sc.edu/study/colleg...