Don't let this delicate little muppet fly fool you - larvae are voracious predators of armored scale insects! A member of the "gall" midge family, it has abandoned plant feeding for a meat-based diet (like many others). #Cecidomyiidae: #Dentifibula viburni Host = white prunicola scale; #Diaspididae

New year, new life! Happy 2026. A Ceraunas Blue (Hemiargus ceraunus) lays an egg on the budding flowers of a plant in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. The mountains have been so green & full of butterflies this year thanks to the many rains. Last year was the opposite - dry and brown. ⛰️🦋🌿

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is birds #GoodLight so here is an Equatorial Antpitta in lovely soft light. These birds are found in the central Andes Mountains of Colombia throughout Ecuador into northern Peru. Zuroloma Birding, Parroquia Nono, Ecuador

One of the best things that happened to me in 2025 was that we got a permit to visit The Wave in Arizona. Here are some photos from last Friday; needless to say, photos do not do justice to this place

Please take some time to look through some of the discoveries photographed in 2025. It should interest some invertebrate enthusiasts. yes? yes? bit.ly/nickybay2025

My best photographs of 2025, a short thread. A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.

Another brainy Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca #lichen. NWT, Canada. #fungi #fungifriends. Lichen is about 3cm wide.

Found some Scarlet Waxcrust (Phlebia coccineofulva) on an American hornbeam stem! 😍 #Mushrooms

my modest collection of flies with WIDE heads 🙇 a hammer-headed Richardia (Ecuador), a stalk-eyed Chaetodiopsis (Mozambique), a pointy-eyed Ophthalmoptera (Colombia), and an antlered Richardia (Colombia) why though? male-male competition? sexual selection? chime-in if you know!

Finally got some photos of Australia’s “blue ant”, Diamma bicolor, which is not an ant at all but a shockingly large metallic blue thynnid wasp, wingless and solitary, that hunts mole crickets. Been meaning to shoot this thing for years.

Can anyone provide an ID? Some sort of insect found inside a well-travelled grand piano. #insects #entomology #piano www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Oh, just a couple cute little ladybugs with blue eyes 🥰 #Coccinellidae: #Hyperaspsis bigeminata North Carolina, USA

Chocolate tube slime mold (Stemonitis sp). Northwest Territories, Canada. #myxo #slimemould #fungifriends. Specimen is about 3cm wide x 2cm high.

Fleas Navidad.

Mosses love to decorate with slime molds. Northwest Territories, Canada. #slime #fungifriends #myxo #moss #bryophyte #botany

#FossilFriday Stack of opalised vertebrae from an Early Cretaceous ichthyosaur. Another remarkable fossil on display in the South Australia Museum, Adelaide.

I do believe I might be Sheffield's leading maker of copper jellyfish bookmarks. 🤣 I can't compete against factory made goods so all I can do is relax into my weird space and hope I can find other strange people. #findyourniche #coppersmithing

“So this exciting fossil discovery of bees nesting in bone cavities, and in caves, serves as a good reminder that when it comes to evolution, bees will keep on being the bees they need to be.” Happy that @cnn.com Science used my quote about this amazing fossil find. www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/s... 🧪🐝🪹🦴🪨

Snakeskin liverwort (Conocephalum conicum). You can see why. #liverwort #moss #madeira

The silk 'stockings' (AKA 'dirty socks!) of Britain's only (mini & benign) tarantula relative, the Purseweb Spider Atypus affinis trail on the ground and descend to line a burrow to 5cm deep. The spiders grab prey through the stocking wall and emerge only as adult males seeking mates in autumn.

I love hearing about fossils that hold more than meets the eye, especially when they hint at how different species interacted millions of years ago! In this article by @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social, scientists found fossil evidence that ancient bees nested in tooth cavities of dead rodents' skulls 🧪🐝💀

A wildlife photographer stumbled upon one of the oldest and largest known collections of dinosaur footprints, dating back about 210 million years to the Triassic Period, high in an Italian national park near the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic venue of Bormio.

A break from Christmas content to enjoy this capybara eating a banana. From François Froger's 'A relation of a voyage ...' (London, 1698).

Man answering his phone on the train: Yes? Correct, I’m not at work (pause) I’m not going to answer that because I am not at work today. No, you’re going to have to ask someone who is. Goodbye.

Never skipped a leg day! Love the legs on these Pantaloon bees. Most people think they are massive pollen sacks but they are in fact double use legs for burrowing and collecting extra pollen. Taken with Canon Eos R5 and Sigma 150mm macro SS1/2000 F8 ISO8000 😮 (not bad eh?)

Check out this gorgeous little gang gang cockatoo 😍

Microstoma protractum, stalked scarlet cup #fungus. One of my favourites, while living in the Northwest Territories, Canada. #fungi #fungifriends #mushroom

MEET MR. MOSSY WEEVIL! 😍👋 This is the most ADORABLE little beetle strutting its mossy stuff around the Amazon! 🌳 LOOK at those adorable little antennas! 🥹💚 Measuring in at one centimetre long, I believe it is in the genus Ulocerus and it is another little GEM found at Manu Biological Station! 🪲💎

Happy, even on a Monday! Puc of a Porpidia lichen taken a few years back in the Northwest Territories, Canada. #lichen #happy #smile #fungi #fungifriends

If you miss seeing insects during the winter you can attract them with festive strings of Cheerios and cranberries, apparently. Found this while cross-country skiing in a local park a few years ago. #diptera #insects #trichocera #cranefly #flies

"City dwellers looking to add a touch of nature to their homes are often the ones interested in the nests." Gift link. #wasps #hymenoptera #dolichovespula #vespidae #insects #nature www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/r...

Gold octopus-shaped ornaments from Bronze Age Mycenae, Grave IV, Grave Circle A. The curled tips of the arms create eyelets for stitching the ornaments onto a garment or shroud some 3,500 years ago. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. 📷 by me #Archaeology

Is there anybody in Alabama looking for a quest? I'm seeing some soil centipedes on iNat that may be a species I would LOVE to have a specimen of, and has only been reported a few times. 100+ legs, reported from Tuscaloosa and now maybe Fort Payne & Guntersville. www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Found a wingless moth chilling in the snow. #lepidoptera #inaturalist #moth #insects www.inaturalist.org/observations...

I love fossils that tell a story. This little horn coral, Heliophyllum halli, from the Hungry Hollow Mb. of Ontario shows rebudding. The main coral head was damaged or buried and grew 2 new buds. It found a way to survive. #FossilFriday

Heading out to look for snow flies. Very hard to find but still gotta try. #diptera #snow

It's always fascinating to see how people paint banana bunches. Detail from Henri Rousseau's 1908 "Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo," currently at the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia. Actual bananas from Longwood Gardens. #bananas #botany #art #philadelphia #musa #rousseau

Worth it

If you are in the Philadelphia area you might want to knock the snow off of any shrubs and small trees you care about. Branches are pretty near the breaking point. #snow #philadelphia #delco #weather #gardening #trees #shrubs

Eyelash fungus (Scutellinia sp). NWT, Canada. #fungi #fungifriends #mushroom

@pasenatorcappelletti.com Thank you so much for your efforts to ban balloon releases in Pennsylvania. I just started following the proposed bill. #balloons #nature #littering #trash #wildlife #pennsylvania 🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈https://www.palegis.us/legislation/bills/2025/sb879

If anyone knows how to identify planthopper parasite moths (Fulgoraecia exigua), could you please help me out on this iNaturalist observation? #inaturalist #moths #lepidoptera www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Can anyone suggest a wireless, weatherproof microphone + speaker set that could transmit bird feeder noises indoors? Galena is happy to just watch but I'd love to provide her with audio. #cat #cats #caturday #birds #birding #birdfeeder #mourningdove

New moss fairy ring! It developed on my greenhouse retaining wall during the past week's sequential atmospheric river deluges. Impressive how fast this wide white mycelium ring grew, and now it made a mushroom already! A new atm river arrives tomorrow, I hope the fungus doesn't eat ALL the moss.

Mite harvesters (Cyphophthalmi) are super interesting from a biogeography perspective - the six families have distributions which reflect plate tectonics of ancient landmasses. The family here in New Zealand can be traced to Gondwana breaking from Laurasia some 200ish MYA! #TheWorldBeneatOurFeet 🧪

The bulky Brontostoma basalis from Ecuador - incredibly strong and its venom packs a punch! When I took it out of the vial it immediately grabbed my finger and bit it. Was it painful? Yes, for a hot minute. But as always with assassin bugs it is more the speed of action that surprises me the most.

Looking for gift ideas? My book takes readers on a journey to rainforests, volcanoes and ancient temples to discover the mind-blowing story of the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in many extraordinary ways. 🧪🌏 planetficus.substack.com/p/the-book

Sphagnum moss spore capsules/sporophytes. NWT, Canada. #moss #bryophyte #fungifriends

Lichen Psora globifera, wet (green) and dry (brown). I’ve always been amazed at the dramatic colour change in lichens as they transition between wet and dry. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends

Wow, “French marine archaeologists have discovered a massive undersea wall off the coast of Brittany, dating from around 5,000 BC”. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...