Brendan O'Loughlin
@brendanoloughlin.bsky.social
📤 1018
📥 562
📝 692
He/him PhD student in the Carstens Lab at The Ohio State University
pinned post!
I would like to announce that I'm starting my PhD this fall in the Carstens Lab at Ohio State University! I haven't nailed down a specific topic yet, but it will most likely be in computational evolutionary biology using insects as a study system. I'm very excited to take this next step!
7 months ago
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My partner recently gifted me a piece of Baltic amber! It has this little beetle in it.
#Coleoptera
do you recognize it maybe?
5 days ago
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@kmagnacca.bsky.social
is this Gonatocerus?
11 days ago
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Y'all, is it possible to get a species ID on a North American Stenus? Asking for a friend...
11 days ago
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Does anyone recognize this beetle? It has me stumped. ~1 mm long, collected from turfgrass on the OSU campus
16 days ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Ainsley S
17 days ago
OSU insect systematics chair!! This sounds like a DEEPLY cool job with a fantastic collection attached:
osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/OSUCareers/j...
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Martha N. and John C. Moser Chair in Arthropod Biosystematics and Biological Diversity
Screen reader users may encounter difficulty with this site. For assistance with applying, please contact
[email protected]
. If you have questions while submitting an application, pleas...
https://osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/OSUCareers/job/Columbus-Campus/Martha-N-and-John-C-Moser-Chair-in-Arthropod-Biosystematics-and-Biological-Diversity_R136850-2
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Productive day looking for galls! I found a few common ones for my area of Ohio + 2 galls that seem to be entirely new.
19 days ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
ZooKeys
21 days ago
"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...
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The search for Earth’s most mysterious creatures is turning up extraordinary results
We still haven’t documented 90 percent of animals on Earth
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/459398/animals-species-unknown-dark-taxa
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Nature
23 days ago
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
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‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother
Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.
https://go.nature.com/4mOb5T9
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This little guy came out of some Cecidomyiidae galls I collected. I think it's a beetle...? No clue about family though.
#Coleoptera
about 1 month ago
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#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?
about 1 month ago
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Hey
#entomology
folks, anyone know what these nymphs are? They were chilling on a giant ragweed leaf in Ohio.
about 1 month ago
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Update: young Belonocnema taste like green apples!!
add a skeleton here at some point
3 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Scott P. Egan
3 months ago
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!
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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
3 months ago
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@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
3 months ago
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I've worked with Tsilavina and can vouch for her passion and conservation work! Please donate if you can.
add a skeleton here at some point
3 months ago
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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
4 months ago
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Collected a recently deceased Aloeus ox beetle and um... fly larvae burst forth
4 months ago
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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
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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Mesostenus sp. from west Texas. I don't know the species but it's beautiful!
4 months ago
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Anyone know what this is I found on a brick from the bottom of a lake??
4 months ago
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@ceiseman.bsky.social
Reared this Calycomyza from a mine on Rudbeckia hirta in Houston. Are the species identifiable without male genitalia?
5 months ago
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Dytiscidae larva? I found it in rainwater puddle
#coleoptera
5 months ago
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@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
5 months ago
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@sehampton.bsky.social
is this genus Lecane? I found this in puddlewater two years ago
5 months ago
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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
5 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Pedro Brandão-Dias F Pinto
5 months ago
Which journal you can think of would take a long descriptive study? Say like breaking down a massive dataset?
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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?
5 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Ainsley S
5 months ago
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
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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
5 months ago
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Does anyone know the subfamily of this Ichneumonid from Spain? Pimplinae maybe?
#Hymenoptera
#Ichneumonidae
5 months ago
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@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
5 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Louis Nastasi
5 months ago
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...
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Review of the world genera of Phanacidini (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea: Cynipidae), with the first record from China and a new tribal diagnostic character | Zootaxa
Login to access subscriber-only resources.
https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5621.4.1
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Bryan Carstens
5 months ago
Bats of a feather: Range characteristics and wing morphology predict phylogeographic breaks in volant vertebrates
biogeography.pensoft.net/articles.php...
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Bats of a feather: Range characteristics and wing morphology predict phylogeographic breaks in volant vertebrates
Intraspecific genetic variation and phylogeographic structure can be influenced by factors such as landscape features, environmental gradients, historical biogeography and organismal traits such as di...
https://biogeography.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=139911
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Evelyndroid's Aperture Science and Bugge-Finding 🏳️⚧️🕷️
6 months ago
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)
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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
6 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Shauna Rasband
6 months ago
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...
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Undescribed and Imperiled: Describing the neglected native Venezillo of the West Coast of the United States
Native isopods of the US have been largely neglected with many species having not even been described or named. This is problematic as many isopods are useful indicator species of healthy environments...
https://experiment.com/projects/undescribed-and-imperiled-describing-the-neglected-native-venezillo-of-the-west-coast-of-the-united-states
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Anyone know what genus of Scarab this is? Diplotaxis maybe?
#Coleoptera
6 months ago
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Crazy how common this species is when you look... even crazier that it was missed until 2022 Neuroterus valhalla from Rice University
6 months ago
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Anyone have an idea about the subfamily of this Braconid? I'm having no luck with the key
#Hymenoptera
#Braconidae
6 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
It's difficult to identify any Latridiid beetle, but this specimen I collected from Deer Park Prairie in Houston seems to perfectly match Melanophthalma picta in morphology and habitat preference. First ever record from Texas i think!
www.inaturalist.org/observations...
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Melanophthalma picta
Melanophthalma picta from Deer Park, TX, USA on March 12, 2025 at 06:48 PM by Brendan O'Loughlin
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/266469115
6 months ago
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It's difficult to identify any Latridiid beetle, but this specimen I collected from Deer Park Prairie in Houston seems to perfectly match Melanophthalma picta in morphology and habitat preference. First ever record from Texas i think!
www.inaturalist.org/observations...
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Melanophthalma picta
Melanophthalma picta from Deer Park, TX, USA on March 12, 2025 at 06:48 PM by Brendan O'Loughlin
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/266469115
6 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Charley Eiseman
6 months ago
Can anyone tell me what this ornamental succulent is (found in southern California, with a leaf mine of interest)?
www.inaturalist.org/observations...
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Genus Marmara
Marmara in May 2020 by Tom Turner. Interesting to see a leaf mine in this non native succulents
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/45105084
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Tell me how this gall wasp spent 30 minutes in ethanol, 1 hour in a -20 C freezer and still came back to life to pull itself off of the glue point mount. I have never seen a bug so tough and I've collected many
6 months ago
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(Again not my photo) Does anyone recognize this wasp my friend found in Virginia soil?
#Hymenoptera
6 months ago
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(Not my photo) Does anyone know what family this is?
#Hymenoptera
6 months ago
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Pentatomidae eggs??
6 months ago
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@ceiseman.bsky.social
I got a moth! Do you think it would be good to preserve it in ethanol after a photograph it?
add a skeleton here at some point
6 months ago
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Scott P. Egan
6 months ago
#A_day_in_the_life
of a live oak (day 409): Neopomphale quercicola, a Eulophid parasitoid wasp that attacks Tetraleurodes whiteflies, found on a leaf of a southern live oak (Quercus virginiana)! Photo credit:
@brendanoloughlin.bsky.social
#biodiversity
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reposted by
Brendan O'Loughlin
Scott P. Egan
7 months ago
#A_day_in_the_life
of a live oak (day 408): Parasitoid wasp in the genus Aphelinus (Eulophidae), which are reported to attack aphids, found hunting on the leaf of a southern live oak (Quercus virginiana)! 📸: Brendan O’Loughlin
#biodiversity
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