Look. At. This. (!). A fungus spore landed on this weevil. Grew inside and caused it to climb to the top of this plant- while the fungus killed it. Consumed its body. Used that energy to shoot up a red fruiting body to release more spores. To zombify more weevils. A mind controlling killer fungus.

Some vertebrates I found in Southeast Alaska. (It was really great to finally see bubble netting)

The entrance to Fords Terror. A fjord just off of Endicott Arm in Alaska. You can only get into (or out of) this fjord at high slack tide- for about twenty minutes a day. More photos of the stunning effects of glaciers on mountain rock soon to come

A humpback whale checking out her above water surroundings (Spyhopping)

A weevil at Wildsumaco in Ecuador. Easily found by following the trail of glitter he leaves behind everywhere he goes. But really- this glitter weevil is always amazing to see and a real wonder of the world. Endless forms most beautiful, indeed.

What spectacular shades of blue. An iceberg just off the face of the Dawes Glacier in Southeast Alaska. That little spec in front of the upper left part of the berg is an Arctic Tern, absolutely dwarfed by this chunk of mountain-carving-ice.

Just a stick cleaning its antennae

🎶horror music🎶 Another cordyceps victim. This particular species of fungus is targeting a different insect. It’s taken over the bugs body and moved it up a tree, where it killed it and consumed it (leaving behind the exoskeleton) using the energy to grow those orange mushrooms and spread more spores

There have been THREE velvet worm (Onychophora) posts in the last day or so, requiring a megathread. I'll add one of their coolest fossils first, from when they were exclusively marine, drawn by @franzanth.bsky.social for @arthropoda-curator.bsky.social (see next 3 skeets in thread...) 🧪

!. Look at this astonishing animal. My velvet worm friend lives on moss in the rainforest. He is ANCIENT. WAY older than dinosaurs, lobopods like him even make an appearance in the Cambrian- when multicellular life became trendy. You can find him today on a tree at Wildsumaco, in Ecuador :)

Magic on the other side of a tree (Red-Bordered Stink Bug)

Look. At. This. (!). A fungus spore landed on this weevil. Grew inside and caused it to climb to the top of this plant- while the fungus killed it. Consumed its body. Used that energy to shoot up a red fruiting body to release more spores. To zombify more weevils. A mind controlling killer fungus.

Just got back from Ecuador, where I made new friends, learned new things, and saw some cool stuff! Ecuador is a country that NEVER disappoints. This gorgeous red huntsman spider is Sadala rauli, a rainforest inhabitant that I see quite often but was only formally described as a species a year ago!

Come take a hike on Antpitta Trail they said... 🐌 👀 Antpitta is right behind the biological station at Wildsumaco, Home of untold wonders, like these Giant South American Snails— and most of the other stuff I post on here. It is a real privilege to live in the same time on earth as these guys.

A game I get to play often in Ecuador… One of these things is not like the other. Do you see him? Imagine looking in an entire forest.

A weevil at Wildsumaco in Ecuador. Easily found by following the trail of glitter he leaves behind everywhere he goes. But really- this glitter weevil is always amazing to see and a real wonder of the world. Endless forms most beautiful, indeed.

A portrait of the charismatic Crayola Katydid (Moncheca sp) hanging out at Wildsumaco in Ecuador. Having held SO many similar (Copiphorini) katydids, it’s jarring to be met with these bright, in your face colors. Other than being purple this guy, and his green relatives, are excellent grass mimics

Hello

I put a camera in the woods beside a lake, right on an otter latrine. Last night my river otter friend visited and did a bit of a dance for you all. Enjoy 🦦

Itty bitty body-mass… phenomenal cosmic biomass 🐜🐛🐞🪲🪳🕷️

Just a wildly wonderful weevil. Sparkly with gold and orange and green specks. No big deal. Found at Wildsumaco Biological Station in Ecuador a couple weeks ago ❤️🧪🐞🐛🪲

Venus fly traps are found only in a sliver of the Carolina’s and no place else on earth. They are specialists in these rapidly declining habitats. I wonder how common and how diverse they would have been a thousand years ago. It was a little bit magic to find a few wild, healthy, and eager for bugs

A dead leaf mimic katydid— check out the “decomposing” leaf / wing parts

Yeah. Imagine my difficulty in finding all of these 🍂🍃🦗

A lichen katydid eating the same lichen it has evolved to mimic and live on. Look at those Maxillae- like little mouth fingers

A blue doctor hanging out in the middle of a hiking trail at #Wildsumaco Biological Station. Proof that I will see the craziest things if I leave my real camera behind. #phonepic #bluemonday #bluebug

This butterfly is out living its butterfly life in a world wholly different than the one we fill with alarm clocks and wifi and expiring milk. Most will never see a human. Will never know AC or anxiety. I am enamored by the idea that we can visit that sort of ancient place with a walk in the woods

Meet my daughters favorite bug — the blushing phantom ❤️. In the cloud forest in Ecuador, her clear wings make a little flutter of pink skip along a few meters in front of us on the hiking trails. They slowly blip along always just out of reach. This is the first I’ve gotten to cooperate for a photo

Look at him 😍. His common name is the Handsome Meadow Katydid (!) and he, and his blue eyes, are in the genus Orchelimum - or - 🎶 Orchestra of the Meadow 🎶. The males fill the air with their calls in the summer and fall here in North America

Obviously just a fly and a leaf 🍂🍁 (Grandeur in Evolution just sitting right there, a dead-leaf mimic katydid ❤️)

Marine Bug 🦀🪳

Just a Murder Bug. The raptorial front legs of this mantis fly are strikingly similar to a praying mantis (and a bunch of other arthropods) and a cool example of convergent evolution.

Here is your Saturday Spider Web. Found in a crevice on a fire-blackened, fallen Sequoia log in Yosemite National Park, California, on Christmas Day. 🐙🌿📷

There is magic on the other side of a leaf. Go look

Happy Christmas morning from this little Earthworm (!) I found in Ecuador

Squiggly line beetle friend. Found wandering about on a tree in Ecuador. Matches the box turtle your neighborhood kid found with their crayon.

A lichen mimic katydid at Wildsumaco in Ecuador. These absolutely disappear into this beard lichen. Finding one was mostly a happy accident. Its neat to think about the selective pressure that lead to them looking just like this lichen, that they both live around and eat as their main diet.

Well Monkey Legged grasshoppers are ridiculous

Hello from a one day old meadow katydid on a grain of rice

Super fast, evasive, and has one of the most painful stings of any animal. This giant solitary wasp was pretty hard to photograph. The close ups show the reason for the common name Velvet Ant. Another name, Cow Killer, comes from that sting #🧪🐜🐝🐄

Imagine living in the cloud forest. Just the right size to be hunter of bugs and hunted by bugs. Inextricably part of Humboldts ‘great chain of causes and effects’. Opportunity and exposure always coming in a pair. Maybe 100k yrs ago our great^ grandparents felt a lot the same. 🦎🧪

I am pretty sure tiger beetles move at the speed of sound. I worked with around a dozen before I met one that I could get some portraits of, and even then these photos took a lot of patience. Awesome animals 🪲🐅🧪

Reskeeting these fancy bugs over to the What's Science feed. @nathanharness.bsky.social said that If you hook a vibrometer to the plant and eavesdrop on them, they sound just like whales singing to each other. 🧪

Just a bug hanging out at Wildsumaco in Ecuador a few weeks back 🧪🪲

Sometimes the rainforest stops you in your tracks. This rove beetle was found by a previously-bug-averse student of mine at our field station in Ecuador. She could not contain her awe. Magic is real. 🧪💙🦋

😍

This is a Katydid who just molted in the rainforest. Her entire body is really soft and malleable (& digestible!), and she’s extremely vulnerable. In a few hours her exoskeleton will react with oxygen and harden, in a process called sclerotization common to basically every insect 🧪🐞

Katydids are famous for their impressive mimicry. Blades of grass, moss, even rotting leaves. But… this is getting out of control (!! 🧪)

If you think you’ve never seen an alien, examine a few detailed diagrams of a grasshopper’s anatomy & think again.

South American social spiders. Not seen is their huge web (and a few hundred more individuals) that they use to communicate with each other via vibrations. Imagine being hunted by a pack of these …