New blog post with pics of the four wasp species that emerged this spring from a fall collection of eastern redbud seeds. #hymenotpera #wasps colinpurrington.com/2026/06/wasp...

If anyone is looking for the perfect housewarming gift. #mosquitoes #bti

Next time you're outside, look a little closer at the forest floor, or even a patch of dirt. There's almost always a chance you'll find something wonderfully weird-looking (that's a compliment) — like this Chlorovibrissea melanochlora.

1/ Five cases of New World screwworm have now been confirmed in the U.S., Texas has declared an emergency, and Canada immediately restricted livestock imports. Most people had never heard of screwworm until last week (or maybe just now). That's because we eradicated it from the U.S. in 1966.🧵

Are there any competitors to Mosquito Dunks in the United States? Seems like lower prices might encourage more people to make mosquito-killing buckets. #mosquitoes #bti

The nearly 2 million bug zappers sold in the United States each year cause the needless deaths of billions of innocent insects. We need to get the word out that they don't control mosquitoes. Please share this list with your neighbors. #mosquitoes #insects colinpurrington.com/2026/06/10-r...

Carmine red slime mold fluffballs. Arcyria denudata. #slimemold #myxomycetes #fungifriends

The Wirecutter team at the New York Time did a deep dive into bug zappers. Not only do they fail to control mosquitoes they kill tens of thousands of innocent insects. Plus can splatter germs a surprising distance. #mosquitoes www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/b...

Spartan Mosquito, Tougher Than Tom, and Aion Products storefronts all down right now due to Shopify outage. Gullible Americans probably looking for back-up scams to buy.

Resting butterfly - Hayden's Ringlet, Coenonympha haydenii (Montana). These aren't flashy butterflies, but I love the textures and the eyespots. #Bugsky 🐙🌿📷

If anyone needs a handout on using Mosquito Dunks to make mosquito traps, I added a 2-page PDF to my blog post on the topic. Would be a perfect insert for buckets that you gift to your neighbors. #mosquitoes colinpurrington.com/2024/08/bti-...

Just saw an iNat observation that would have been the cause of demonic reports 100s of years ago. Someone was digging up some weeds from their yard and thought their shovel hit a rock. But then it moved. A snapping turtle had buried itself in their yard and didnt appreciate being awoken by a shovel.

Map Lichens (Rhizocarpon geographicum), each with their own territory and boundaries, on this piece of hillside stone. County Donegal, Ireland. Cormacscoast.com walking tours

The Asa Gray Disjunction is the biogeographical relationship between Eastern North America & the Sino-Japanese Floristic Region of East Asia. Classic example: Liriodendron (#Magnoliaceae) has just 2 spp: 📷1: L. tulipifera of ENA & 📷2: L. chinense Jiao Sun CCBY4 of EA. #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Come on, social media folks at NPR, just tell us in the post that the device name was BOMB. We are busy! Or at least include a “Jump to Lede” link like the recipe bloggers do.

Hoverfly larvae on a grass stem outside a pub in Wales. At this scale they always look rather... alien. Fear not, these are UK natives and friends, eating pests in your garden 🌿 #entomology #bugsky #diptera

Before you dump out that container full of mosquito larvae make sure they are not tadpoles. #mosquitoes #frogs www.reddit.com/r/MosquitoHa...

The National Transportation Safety Board temporarily pulled its docket system offline after digital images were used to reconstruct cockpit voice recordings of the pilots in a recent crash.

New favorite Agapostemon sweat bee photo: Native green bee on native blue flax in our garden!

Camponotus with another ant's head still clamped to her left antenna. Second time I've seen this with this species (Camponotus pennsylvanicus?) this spring! Wild how the mandibles can still be locked so tightly even after the attacker was decapitated!

Continuing this nested thread about #marine #lichens. Collemopsidium foveolatum (below) can be confused with less common C sublitorale, which also grows on shells. But perithecia of latter are emergent, not immersed. Both occur on these #barnacles, making difference easier to see. Ormsary, Scotland.

For #worldsealionday here is the single greatest wildlife photo I've ever taken: a California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) inside a backlit wave! Shot at La Jolla, CA, last Friday. 🐬🦑

Thrift Clearwing and Long-horned Bee at Froward Point, Devon today! I’ve been checking regularly for these species here so great to find them both today. Lots of common migrant butterflies and moths and this Robberfly, Dysmachus trigonus #teammoth #insect #robberfly

Have you, like me, spent the last 26 years worrying if the Canadian Potato Museum STILL has the display of various potato diseases with potatoes in little coffins? Stop worrying. I checked today. Still there.

A Spider Wasp (family Pompilidae) that has caught a Jumping Spider (family Salticidae), spotted at Bukit Batok Nature Park, Singapore on 12 May 2025. On iNaturalist [ www.inaturalist.org/observations... ] #iNaturalist #Nature #Photography #Singapore #Insects #Wasps #Hymenoptera #Spiders #Araneae

In the last week or so Western Giant Ichneumonid Wasps (Megarhyssa notrtoni) have oviposited on a dying spruce tree in our yard. Today a female horntail (Xeris indecisus) is ovipositing on the same tree, with a couple male horntails hanging around. The ichneumons parasitize the horntail larvae.

The maker of the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech, AC2T, Inc., is violating a settlement agreement that ended sales of the device after December 2025. I've alerted the presiding judge and the EPA but both have declined to act. The scam is selling briskly on Amazon. #epa #pesticides #mississippi #mosquitoes

Part of the world's most expensive wallpaper, "Views of the American War of Independence," by Zuber & Cie (France). It takes the company an entire year to complete and uses 2,300 hand-carved wood blocks, most nearly 200-years-old. Fraunces Tavern Museum, NYC. #250th #revolution #history #art

"The whiskey is heavily scented with woodsy, citrus notes – it smells like something you’d spray in the corners of a wardrobe to ward off moths." The distinctive ingredient, nootkatone, is an EPA-registered mosquito repellent. #mosquitoes #whiskey #philadelphia [gift link] share.inquirer.com/gUs8Xr

Look what I found in the woods in my yard! This is Monotropa uniflora, aka "ghost pipes." They are parasitic plants, with no chlorophyll of their own, that feed from fungal networks in the soil. The fungi, in turn, are connected to nearby tree roots, which provide sugars. #nativeplants

Aaah!!!! 🥳 I have always wanted to find a warty leaf beetle in person!!!! Checking another off my bugket list! #bugsky

Two of the 11 duck decoys found in 1924 inside Lovelock Cave (Nevada), sealed up approximately 2400 years ago by an earthquake. The one on the right resembles a canvasback (Aythya valisineria). Museum of the American Indian (Manhattan location). #ducks #archaeology

Here's how I deal with mosquitoes in my Pennsylvania yard. I also have some opinions on what you shouldn't do. #mosquitoes colinpurrington.com/fighting-mos...

If you have a neighbor who is considering fogging their yard with pyrethroids, please send this to them. #mosquitoes colinpurrington.com/2018/09/buzz...

A Whip Spider (genus Ariamnes) spotted at Ulu Sembawang Park Connector, Singapore on 27 May 2026. An unusual spider with an extremely long abdomen. The oval object on the web is its egg sac. On iNaturalist [ www.inaturalist.org/observations... ]. #iNaturalist #Nature #Singapore #Spiders #Araneae

Just a reminder that the Tougher Than Tom Mosquito TNT is a scam. After a month the container will be filled with rotting carcasses of flies, beetles, moths, ants, and spiders. And it will STINK. I've never seen a mosquito even come close to the container. #mosquitoes www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxAo...

I was really happy to see & capture this lovely courtship of these Cryptic wood white #butterflies on a roadside verge.

Woodpeckers peel away the bark of ash trees to feed on emerald ash borer larvae, making “bark blonding” one of the earliest signs of infestation. Learn more about EAB biocontrol here: www.emeraldashborer.info/biological-c... #EABAwarenessWeek #InvasiveSpecies #Entomology 🧪🌍🍁

Happy World Bee Day! This here is an Unequal Cellophane Bee. Only 3 observations of this species in all of BC on iNaturalist (so far). These bees MAKE THEIR OWN PLASTIC. They cocoon their burrow nest cells with a biodegradable polyester lining! Humans have only been doing this since the 1850s...

Very happy to find my first ever Parasyrphus nigritarsus eggs and larvae in Green Dock Beetle egg batches yesterday during the wildlife group's trip to the Bicton area. This hoverfly predates the eggs of various leaf beetles, laying its own eggs (the smaller, white ones) within their egg batches.

As tick season ramps up, keep in mind importance of preserving any tick that attaches. In theory, a tick not engorged cannot pass on disease, but there can still be infection and for peace of mind I always send them to the Tick Report. Testing is fast and not that expensive. 1/2 www.tickreport.com

This cartoonish caterpillar will pupate into a large sphinx moth. I'm guessing the disguise is to fool birds into thinking it's a snake? A very, very goofy snake. Not a snack. (Xylophanes crotonis) #invert El Refugio de Intag, Ecuador

Part of a large floor mosaic from the huge Baths Of Caracalla, #Rome. The black tesserae are basalt; the white are marble. Depicted is the body and tail of a sea monster ridden by Eros holding a whip in his right hand. 3rd C AD. #MosaicMonday #Archaeology 📷 my own.

Aphid nearly done. Solid 925 sterling silver, pre-patina (and eyes, and honeydew) 🛠️ #sciart #bugsky

I have found the source of all mosquitoes

Here is your Saturday Spider Mom. I like how her egg sac has a "leash" that I presume she can use to keep tabs on things. Found under a rock in the Mojave Desert last week. A small spider, less than a cm. long. #Bugsky 🐙🌿🕷️

There were still flowers to be found in the desert last week. Left to right: Woolystar (Eriastrum sp.), Desert Calico (Loeseliastrum matthewsii), Paperbag Bush (Scutellaria mexicana), and buckwheat (Eriogonum, not sure which species). 🌿🌸

handsome male Habronattus americanus, from a recent trip to the far southern Sierra Nevada, on the underappreciated Kern Plateau right places, right time ... these are very common spiders

I tested the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech, the Aion Mosquito Barrier, and the Tougher Than Tom Mosquito TNT so that you don't have to. #mosquitoes colinpurrington.com/2020/08/yeas...

Just a little spider Appx 3-5mm, I think genus Neon