Molluscs counts as bugs sensu latissimo, and this is true

Did you know...? Morphological simplicity isn’t primitive — it’s derived. Resupinate (“crust”) fungi occur everywhere on the mushroom tree of life , popping up independently in multiple major clades, repeatedly evolving from more complex ancestors. Find out more here: buff.ly/KAX5P3f

Looking for a small grant for systematics work? Check us out! systass.org/linnesys/ Deadline is MARCH 27 at 23:59 GMT+1 All you need is to be a member of the @systassn.bsky.social or the @linneansociety.bsky.social Caveat, legally, we cannot fund anyone in these countries: tinyurl.com/wemwtfrz

We have many of Elizabeth Gray's fossils in the Benthic Mollusca collection at NHM, waiting for an intrepid researcher to pick up where she left off!

The Library and Archives are holding an open day in the Earth Sciences Library. Friday 20 March 2026, 11.00 - 15.00. Lasting Impressions Gallery (Free). ☝️Full details in our bio link. #NaturalHistoryMuseum #WomensMonth #WomenInScience #WomenInStem #IWD26 #ExploreYourArchives #MuseumArchives

It's been a long week which is probably why I'm crying while telling my friend about passenger pigeons /o\

Just participated in a museum event where teenagers got to vote for the next exhibition they want to fund, out of three pitches, and they picked mine!! Someone page the director, we got molluscs to build display cases for!!

So many accounts of Palaeontology Fieldwork TM are about hunting bones in deserts. Istg one day I'm gonna write about trudging waist deep through rivers in the rain in search of one specific endemic scallop. With a full supporting cast of wasps, eels, and malfunctioning Mitsubishi vans

just as a PSA to anyone this might be useful for: you can filter searches in iNat by CC licensing, so you can view all phot observations that are free to use. Maybe less AI content up there... for now... although photo quality often includes less beautifully framed images, less clear water, etc...

This is your reminder that stock image sources cannot be trusted as sources for biology any more because what the hell is this shit? I searched "Tridacna" in DuckDuckGo with options to hide AI images and the global AI killswitch turned on. This is on the first page of results

Self-inflicted misery. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

“We don’t need this anymore,” you say, “we can just take digital photos of living organisms” buddy where are you going to store that jpg that someone can retrieve it flawlessly 50 years from now

"Cowards"? I think that's rudist.

Per wins the banter award 😂😂😂

I notice that no one has offered to de-extinct Titanosarcolites. Cowards.

Argh.

🙏Please share🙏 🐌Applications are open for MSL travel grants!🐌 ⭐Deadline = 1st March (for travel between 1st June and 30th November) ⭐£500 available for members ⭐£300 available for non-members malacsoc.org.uk/awards-and-g...

🌘 "Starchild" 🌟 Commission for @franzanth.bsky.social & at last another of my Golden Orbits.

Timezones mean sometimes I get to stay up til 10pm yelling about the relevance of Euclid and Ptolemy to the measurement of Nipponites mirabilis 🥰

The 12yo has declared Porcelain Crab Awareness Day! I’m especially fond of the red and white polka dotted ones. Are they crabs if they have crab in their name? Nope. These are decapod crustaceans evolving ever crab-wards!

Calling rock nerds: a large, heavy, and vaguely metallic rock at the Rock and Art Shop in Bangor.

Ok I gotta get better a sewing bc I need a shirt made of this for the next WCM!

Another day, another specimen cut from a gallery plan due to unspecified reasons (but probably due to lack of teeth, claws, and hyperbolic name 🙄)

It's ostracod time!!!

Pelecypod Pride!

It's 02/02 which means it's World Bivalve(d Organism) Day!

THIS THIS THIS THIS

New paper out: The flounder effect: disparities in taxonomic and ecological study intensity across extant and fossil marine organisms hamper conservation with @fossildetective.bsky.social, @bigfacecats.bsky.social, Curtis Congreve & @jonhendricks.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44... 🦑⚒️

JUST SAW KŌTUKU AT MY LOCAL PARK

By all means do a trans history week but the current Labour government has to be discussed as the current oppressive force in the comparison with history. They are banned from pride for a fucking reason what are you doing involving them with this

Western Society of Malacologists has a research travel grant for students heading to LACM or other museums to work on extant or extinct mollusks that live(d) in western North America -$1500 max Proposal and rec letter are due March 1st 2025: westernsocietymalacology.org/grants/james...

🐌Become an MSL member!🐌 Membership gets you: ⭐Our journal - Journal of Molluscan Studies ⭐Our bulletin - The Malacologist ⭐Society meetings ⭐Likely coming this year… exclusive funding 🙏Please support us to advance molluscan research & education!🙏 malacsoc.org.uk/membership/

Today the 12yo has declared Chiton Awareness Day! These amazing marine molluscs can come in extraordinary colours, and are not to be confused with the garment worn in Ancient Greece and Rome.

does anyone know of any documentaries or movies that prominently feature seals?

Collaborate with me! Myself and @peterroopnarine.bsky.social are looking for a postdoc with expertise in quantitative paleoecology to work on our new NSF grant addressing whether communities after the PTME functioned differently than those beforehand. job-boards.greenhouse.io/californiaac...

#FossilFriday Graptolites are extremely useful as zonal fossils in the Ordovician and Silurian. Some look like pencil marks but better preserved examples, like this Monograptus priodon from the Wenlock of Scotland, resemble miniature saw blades.

Question from the groupchat: do whales have foreskins? 🤔

Mollusc-related Academic Grant alert Deadline: February 28, 2026 For:malacological topic, usually within biology or paleontology, with any molluscan taxon or taxa as the focus. All scientific disciplines in studying mollusks eligible Please see : www.conchologistsofamerica.org/grants/ 🦑 #snails

This morning I saw a post w/photos of Smithsonian paleontologist Charles Gilmore, and it dislodged a thought from my brain: I *still* use the dude's work, 80 years after his last paper. Why? Because he published copious data - measurements, solid morphological descriptions, great photos. <thread>

On the one hand I should decline to review this paper that I fundamentally disagree with and which used my own damn dataset to do something I think is a fools errand - I don't think I can give it a fair hearing and I should recuse myself.

Cute little foram from Negambo, Sri Lanka #foraminifera #foramsofsrilanka

wrote about what's pissing me off about the search for Leonardo da Vinci's DNA defector.com/leonardo-da-...

I wasn't fast enough to get a pic but the little scrolling LED sign in my tube just said "the next station is!! Eastcote". No one has ever been that excited about Eastcote in human history but it's cute that the tube is

Do I volunteer for the museum's valentines event again? On the one hand: they cancelled our Pride event last year (still salty about that) and this is an opportunity to showcase what I would have shown then ... on the other hand ... Valentine's Day 🙄

Reminder to @systassn.bsky.social members: membership is calendar-year not rolling: our system does not remember when you paid and calculate 12mo from then; so if you have not paid IN THIS CALENDAR YEAR you will not get stuff from us! The earlier in the year you pay the more access you get!

I don't care whether you're a professional with 8 years of work experience or a literal 8 year old who just thinks bugs are neat. All that matters is you're having fun drawing critters and want to share that with the world. Submit to our next (April) edition here:

Still time to apply for this PhD studentship on evolution and environmental changes in Polystira! blogs.reading.ac.uk/crocus-dla/c...

A new years treat for all the crab fans out there!

So I found an old Guess Who set to convert ... I'm thinking this could be a fun outreach game!

The cruelty, as so often seems to be the case with this govt, is very clearly the point 🤬