We're at #ECN2025 in Portland, Oregon! We're passionate about entomological collections, which is why we published some of last year's ECN in a special topical collection: nhcm.pensoft.net/topical_coll... Check out the @pensoft.net stand for our latest news!

Steven Hammer, one of our regular collection users, co-developed a new #insect pinning block, with staff and volunteers from the museum. It’s 3D-printed and open source, so you can try it for yourself: cults3d.com/en/3d-model/... #ECN2025

Hey EntFriends #EntSoc25: This high school entomology club in California is looking for funds to support their pinning and collections. Can we make that happen? Any donations large and small will help! www.donorschoose.org/project/inse...

#FlyFriday new assassin fly species described from #Namib Desert today - Acnephalomyia metallicoindica Blee, Cabrero & Dikow, 2025 (Asilidae: Willistonininae) - summer research project by Tayler Blee in 2024 - species endemic to gravel plains of Namib - doi doi.org/10.3897/AfrI... #asiloidflies

A new species is described as the assassin-fly genus 𝐴𝑐𝑛𝑒𝑝ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑚𝑦𝑖𝑎 is reviewed in the southern Namib Desert. 🔗 doi.org/10.3897/afri... @ento-allan.bsky.social @tdikow.bsky.social

Aren't robberflies amazing? Large, fast, predatory flies that inject their prey with a paralysing and digestive neurotoxin, then suck out the liquified contents. Yum. We saw this fine example on an #orchid in Rhodes this year. Looking forward to what we find there next spring...

Soldierflies are much less well known than hoverflies but some species are highly colourful. Sargus bipunctatus ♀ today in Bengeo garden, large attractive woodland species & last soldierfly to appear during year. @uk-soldierflies.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social #Stratiomyidae

invasive Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula, Fulgoridae) is heavily feeding on the introduced Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima, Simaroubaceae) at my house

Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today. Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology

with the official IUCN listing for the slender-billed curlew now being Extinct here is the rather sad piece I wrote about what went into this decision I tried to include everything we know about their behaviour and biology, which is tragically little 🪶🧪 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

#OTD 3 Oct 1990 35 years ago - Germany reunited - I grew up in East Germany what became then Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state - beautiful place in north-east on Baltic Sea coast - I view vistas of sea to symbolize freedom, democracy + opportunity that changed my life profoundly #TagderDeutschenEinheit

20 Jahre Darßer Naturfilmfestival-im Oktober sind Naturschützer und Kreative an der Ostsee,um Natur zu bewundern und hieran zu erinnern: „1990 war eine Sternstunde des deutschen Naturschutzes. 5 Nationalparks, 6 Biosphärenreservate und 3 Naturparks entstanden auf 4,5% der Landesfläche der DDR.“

beautiful day in Washington, D.C. - sunny, 15C/60F right now, 23C/73F high - U.S. government shut down last night - Smithsonian museums will remain open until Monday (Oct 6) - after that, all museums will be closed to visitors + staff - employees will be furloughed

I found this rove beetle friend on the rainforest floor. They are so so fast, you can imaging me chasing it around with my camera just rolling around in the leaf litter. Just unbelievable colors. In person the rainbow iridescence is stunning. It’s hard to say much here beyond just wow.

#FlyFriday Apiocera pica Norris, 1936 (Apioceridae, USNMENT00832111) from Wandoo National Park, Western Australia collected in 2011 - more info here n2t.net/ark:/65665/3... #asiloidflies #USNMDiptera

Each year more content moves into the #publicdoman and hence @biodivlibrary.bsky.social can make more articles freely available. Today I've added articles from the Annales of @socentomolfr.bsky.social 1923-1928 to BioStor biostor.org/issn/0037-9271 and these will appear in BHL shortly.

Lions across Africa are under threat from habitat loss, poaching, and wildlife trade. A continent-wide survey of 132 lion subpopulations was conducted in collaboration with landscape managers and lion researchers to determine perceived threat severity. [1/2] @biology.ox.ac.uk

Coral reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean, but support 25% of marine life + nearly 1 billion people. They’re at risk, but not lost. 🪸 🌏

Are you researching the conservation, ecology or taxonomy of soil & litter invertebrates? Submit your paper to this Special Issue of NZ Journal of Zoology, edited by me, @carlosbarreto.bsky.social & @barnesecodiv.bsky.social! More info: www.royalsociety.org.nz/news/nzjz-so... #SoilBiodiversity 🧪

#FlyFriday one of my favorite assassin flies - Sisyrnodytes subater Oldroyd, 1957 (Asilidae: Willistonininae, USNMENT00870084) - collected in north-western South Africa near Pella - more info here n2t.net/ark:/65665/3... #asiloidflies

@nhmdk.bsky.social is advertising a PhD fellowship in collection-based Natural History Research focused on dark taxa and unknown species, preferably including representatives of Danish flora, fauna or geology deadline 5 October 2025 candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Yesterday was the 130th anniversary of the #ICZN, the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature. It was founded during the zoology congress in Leiden, organized by the then director the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Frederik Jentink.

@gbif.org is amazing. And so is Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris), for photographing and putting online so many of their African wasps. I can sit at home in Finland, and get a first impression of how well my Ugandan wasps fit a Madagascar species whose type specimen is in France. 🧪

The BHL online collection just hit 200,000 titles! A title could be a single rare book or an entire 200-year journal run, so 200,000 titles is huge (63+ million pages!). Check out BHL's MAMMOTH collection here: www.biodiversitylibrary.org 📖 🧪 🦣 #OpenAccess #OpenScience #ILoveBHL

Unsere #Klimaschutzpolitik reicht nicht mal mehr für das eigene #Klimaschutzgesetz. Die #Erderhitzung eskaliert – und die Regierung schaut weg 😡 Zeit für klare Stimmen bei der #Klimademo am Samstag! ✊ #Scientists4Future #FridaysforFuture

My amazing #Wiki colleague @tiagolubiana.bsky.social has released this lovely video on the #BHLImageExporer. This tool (bhl-gallery.toolforge.org) explores @biodivlibrary.bsky.social images in #Wikicommons. It facilities image reuse in the #Wikiverse. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK9i... #ILoveBHL

AMNH is hiring a #curator! We are searching for an “Assistant Curator in #Climate #Physics: #Atmosphere or #Ocean”! Join us! careers.amnh.org/postings/4579 #academicjobs #tenuretrack

Been a while but well done @nytimes.com for todays #taxonomicfail (and @bfly52.bsky.social for pointing this out) Do love a Spelling Syrphid Forum..

So very pleased and proud to announce that our paper "Revealing hidden figures within natural history collections by empowering students with data sleuthing skills" has been published! #Wikidata #Bionomia #HiddenFigures acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Wenn in Hamburg... Heute abend läuft im Freiluftkino an der Uni der Film "Morenga", basierend auf dem gleichnamigen Roman, einer tollen, frühen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Genozid an den Herero und Nama Vorher gibt es eine Einführung von mir, und danach können wir diskutieren!

#JobAlert #NatHist Smithsonian natural history museum is searching for 4 Museum Specialists in Entomology - 1 = Heteroptera coll, 2 = general coll management, 1 = informatics + data - deadline Aug 19 - 1 year (may be extended based on funds availability) trustcareers.si.edu/postings/a15...

#FlyFriday rarely collected mydas-fly species Agaperemius hirtus Hesse, 1969 (Mydidae: Syllegomydinae; NMNW-H42889) - species is only known from 3 specimens - male from southern Namibia - more detail at @gbif.org record www.gbif.org/occurrence/1... #asiloidflies

Motherfucking wind farms…

Just felt liking putting on some fly piccies! 🙂 Rhipidia maculata; Dioctra linearis and Ravinia pernix. www.dipteraid.co.uk #flies #entomology #dipteraimaging

📢 Just one more day to apply! Deadline: 31 July 2025 at 12pm BST If your research celebrates & empowers underrepresented groups & encourages greater #diversity of contributions in #entomology, apply for The RES #EDI #Grant. Read & apply now 🔽 buff.ly/pLB39iM #CitizenScience #LGBTQA+ #WomenInSTEM

#FlyFriday assassin fly Afromellitodes solis Oldroyd & Van Bruggen, 1967 (NMSA-DIP-93241, Laphriinae) - Rust de Winter NR, Limpopo, South Africa 17.ii.2005 Londt & Dikow - very rare species/genus postulated to mimic Megachile bees - see Londt 2003 hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc84523 #asiloidflies

📎 New species alert: Ceriana ecuadorensis, a wasp-mimicking flower fly from #Ecuador, just described! Collected at 1400 meters in Zamora-Chinchipe. Only the 3rd #Ceriana from #SouthAmerica — distinguished by unique antennal morphology. 📄 doi.org/10.4289/0013... #Diptera #NewSpecies #Taxonomy

1) Ever thought about learning new data skills? 👩‍💻 Through our partnership with DataCamp Adel learned introductory skills in #Python, data manipulation in #Pandas and data visualization techniques with #Seaborn. 🎉

“Scientists don’t have the Hippocratic oath that doctors do, but we should. If you see that harm to the stability of climate and to present and future generations is being caused, then, in my opinion, you have a moral and ethical responsibility as a climate scientist to speak out against that.”

See a CC0 dataset in @gbif.org Go to @bionomia.net & see it needs work. Did a quick hour or so of disambiguation, finding @orcid.org numbers, creating & enriching @wikidatacommunity.bsky.social items. Hey presto 30% of specimens are now linked to collector identifiers. bionomia.net/dataset/8526...

Take a long hard look at this graphic, the longest continuous direct measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This is the famous Keeling Curve from the station atop Mauna Loa, Hawaii. Trump and the GOP are closing the observatory. scripps.ucsd.edu/bluemoon/co2...

#FlyFriday assassin fly Stenopogon duncani Bromley, 1937 (Asilidae: Stenopogoninae) photographed in Mojave Desert near Parker, AZ, USA in 2015 - feeding on hemipteran - more info at www.inaturalist.org/observations... - www.gbif.org/species/5091... #asiloidflies

It's #TourDeFrance season & so am working in front of the TV while watching the race. Been concentrating on adding #NaturalHistory specimen collectors to #Wikidata, disambiguating them & attributing specimens to them via @bionomia.net. Hit a milestone figure of which I am very proud. #10Million

10M !!! It’s hard the fathom the time and effort Siobhan has devoted to creating and curating the links between collectors (as represented by their @wikidatacommunity.bsky.social Q number or @orcid.org ID) to their specimen records available through @gbif.org

#FlyFriday one of my favorite assassin fly observations/collections - Trichoura tankwa Londt, 1994 (Asilidae: Willistonininae, USNMENT01115152) from Little Karoo in South Africa in 2015 - iNaturalist www.inaturalist.org/observations... - #USNMDiptera n2t.net/ark:/65665/3... #asiloidflies

“It would be a huge mistake to deviate from 1.5.” PIK Director Johan Rockström and other leading scientists spoke to @newyorker.com about the realities of delayed emissions reductions and the dire consequences of giving up hope. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Thread Our new paper shows aquatic insects shrink & develop faster as water warms. That weakens their role in ecosystems, hurt by global insect decline. Why shrink? Larvae can’t get enough O2. @ebdonana.bsky.social @csic.es @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social @katharinehayhoe.com 📄 doi.org/10.1111/een....

big, cool flies from Costa Rica spotted in unsorted Diptera collection at @amnh.org today - Pyrgotidae + Mesembrinellidae @teamdiptera.bsky.social

studying #asiloidflies at @amnh.org today - one of the best collections of apiocerid flies (Apioceridae) with almost every of the 65 North American species present - often with primary + secondary type material

Great article on the history of & specimens collected by the Lady Franklin Bay expedition. I loved the use & the crediting of @bionomia.net (which uses #Wikidata for deceased collectors) for assisting in the uncovering of more specimens from that expedition. doi.org/10.1002/ppp3... #Bionomia