My dad found this gall beetle (?) on Aizoon africanum (Aizoaceae) in South Africa. Looks vaguely weevil-ish but I have no clue what it is #Coleoptera

@ceiseman.bsky.social Am I right in saying this is a Melanagromyza species? Found inside what I think is an old wingstem stem

Trying my hand at macropod images! This is a female from the sexual generation of the oak gall wasp Dryocosmus quercuspalustris

@americanbeetles.bsky.social Is this Dienerella? Swept from honeysuckles bushes here in Ohio

"The wood-feeding cockroach S. taiwanensis forms monogamous pairs following a unique mating behaviour, ‘mutual wing-eating’, during which partners consume each other’s wings..." - Haruka Osaki, Kensei Kikuchi, Nathan Lo royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Does anyone know what this Hemipteran nymph from west Texas could be? It was extremely tiny and fast

I have a question for more senior academics then me: how do you read the literature? Like the keeping-up-with-the-field reading. After reading through 2-3 papers my brain gets really tired and its hard to read another one that day. Is the answer practice? Skimming? Or maybe 2-3 a day is fine?

@derekhennen.bsky.social Do you recognize this millipede? It was collected from a cave in Portage County, Ohio

I collected and dissected this male Pterostichus (Abacidus). Is there any way that the species can be identified by the genitalia? #Coleoptera

Long shot here but does anyone recognize this small harvestman? I collected it from under a rock in central Ohio #arachnology

This is a weird one. I found a leafmine on Amur honeysuckle. Didn't know they even had herbivore damage!

My partner recently gifted me a piece of Baltic amber! It has this little beetle in it. #Coleoptera do you recognize it maybe?

@kmagnacca.bsky.social is this Gonatocerus?

Does anyone recognize this beetle? It has me stumped. ~1 mm long, collected from turfgrass on the OSU campus

OSU insect systematics chair!! This sounds like a DEEPLY cool job with a fantastic collection attached: osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/OSUCareers/j...

Productive day looking for galls! I found a few common ones for my area of Ohio + 2 galls that seem to be entirely new.

"The unknown is made up of small organisms, such as insects, mites, and crustaceans. These species are the nuts and bolts of ecosystems. And most of them have yet to be identified." www.vox.com/down-to-eart...

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

This little guy came out of some Cecidomyiidae galls I collected. I think it's a beetle...? No clue about family though. #Coleoptera

#Hymenoptera thoughts about this wasp? It's clearly a Eulophid and I've tentatively keyed it to Entiinae. I reared it from the Cecidomyiid Neolasioptera vernoniae. However, Entiinae is virtually unknown from midge galls sp I am skeptical. Does anyone want to make a better guess?

Hey #entomology folks, anyone know what these nymphs are? They were chilling on a giant ragweed leaf in Ohio.

Update: young Belonocnema taste like green apples!!

Hey #Evol2025 - My colleague @waspvenom.bsky.social and I are looking for a postdoc for our #NSF - #USDA funded grant to understand the genetic basis of gall formation! Please see that attached ad, and feel free to talk to me @evolmtg.bsky.social, or contact Dr. Ellen Martinson directly!

Old mystery of mine. I found these fossilized (?) bone fragments in a river in the Kenyan Rift Valley in 2018. Does anyone know what they could be from? The porousness of the bone is striking #paleontology

@ceiseman.bsky.social I found a leafmine on Quercus virginiana that I didn't recognize! Unfortunately seem to have just missed their emergence. The exit hole seems to be covered in some sort of waxy membrane, which is bizarre

I've worked with Tsilavina and can vouch for her passion and conservation work! Please donate if you can.

Hey #Diptera folks, I have a really weird mystery going on. I reared two Tachinidae flies from empty Rabdotus snail shells that I thought were still alive (they were glued down to vegetation) It doesn't seem to key to any genus, and no recorded Tachinid parasitizes snails

Collected a recently deceased Aloeus ox beetle and um... fly larvae burst forth

Incredible news from @batcon.org! I used to live in the Comoros and these fruit bats are some of thebmost impressive animals on the islands

Mesostenus sp. from west Texas. I don't know the species but it's beautiful!

Anyone know what this is I found on a brick from the bottom of a lake??

@ceiseman.bsky.social Reared this Calycomyza from a mine on Rudbeckia hirta in Houston. Are the species identifiable without male genitalia?

Dytiscidae larva? I found it in rainwater puddle #coleoptera

@mossworm.bsky.social turns out they are Moina not Daphnia! I feel like species ID might be possible but I'm way out of my depth here

@sehampton.bsky.social is this genus Lecane? I found this in puddlewater two years ago

My friend needs help with IDing some Annelids! The first one was found in a pond, and the second was found in moss #Annelida #worms

Which journal you can think of would take a long descriptive study? Say like breaking down a massive dataset?

Random questions to those entomologists who might know Are parasitoids comparable in trophic ecology to "apex" vertebrate predators like lions and sharks? Or are they different enough to have their own category?

we also found a fresh oak gall, which I split open to show the child how a wasp has laid her egg inside and injected the plant with a teratogen that makes a huge, hideous tumor on purpose, bc nature is beautiful

Hey Entomology folks, is there a way to dissolve glue off a specimen without damaging it? I may have, uh, covered the whole front half of the only known specimen of a species in glue

Does anyone know the subfamily of this Ichneumonid from Spain? Pimplinae maybe? #Hymenoptera #Ichneumonidae

@toomanywasps.bsky.social I got a bunch of wasp specimens from Spain and this Cynipid was one of them. I assume its Cynipini? Looks a little weird to me though

New #gall #wasp paper from our lab! We review the genera of Phanacidini herb gall wasps, present the first record from China, and identify a new tribal diagnostic character! Now onto revising the species and genera… every synonymized genus needs to be resurrected! www.mapress.com/zt/article/v...

Bats of a feather: Range characteristics and wing morphology predict phylogeographic breaks in volant vertebrates biogeography.pensoft.net/articles.php...

Parasitoid wasp ovipositors are like weevil's snoots, but for the ass: They're long because they gotta get into things which don't want to be got into (Torymus sp. wasp, which emerged from a wasp gall I collected)

Not the normal type of thing I post, but something I've wondered about for a while. I dug up this (old?) Coca Cola bottlecap in South Africa in 2022. Does anyone on BlueSky know what year it might he from?? #modernarcheology

The American Southwest is home to extremely adorable undescribed species. If you are able, consider chipping in a penny to help them get described! experiment.com/projects/und...

Anyone know what genus of Scarab this is? Diplotaxis maybe? #Coleoptera

Crazy how common this species is when you look... even crazier that it was missed until 2022 Neuroterus valhalla from Rice University

Anyone have an idea about the subfamily of this Braconid? I'm having no luck with the key #Hymenoptera #Braconidae