Subterranean ecosystems are key to water, climate, biodiversity & culture. But to what extent? As part of @biodiversa.eu DarCo we demonstrate that they contribute to 75% of classified ecosystem services. Read OA in Biol Rev: doi.org/10.1002/brv.... Illustration @jmalumbresolarte.bsky.social

Medical doctors have no particular expertise on spider bites, and absent the patient bringing in the spider in a jar, and/or a venom test, 99% of "spider bites" are something else. Medical doctors, in the absense of knowledge, will pass along folklore just to avoid admitting they don't know.

Interested in the ecosystem services provided by leaf-litter arthropod communities? Read all about it in the latest 'Value in nature' post: 'Hidden treasures'. #biodiversity #nature 🌐 mscaterino.pika.page/posts/hidden...

i found this little jumper yesterday in east San Diego County, and she has the most wonderful eyelashes!

See you all at Darwin Day next week on our beautiful @sandiegostate.bsky.social campus, featuring Dr. Jim McGuire's keynote lecture on "Darwin, Wallace, and my Own Studies on the Magical Island of Sulawesi, Indonesia"! Deets in the flyer - but please DM me if you have any questions.

Skeleton shrimp: superior snackers This amphipod in the family Caprellidae, has feather-like setae line several of their 18 appendages for collecting food — amphipod translates to “feet on all sides” in Greek. #argentiniandeepseeps ~1200 meters

Interested in insect macrophotography? If you are in the midwest, think about attending this workshop put on by @ageofarthropods.bsky.social and myself, 2-3 May 2026 cvent.me/qK5bOo

Siskiyou County is the best !

Given that at least 50% of all biodiversity is unknown to science , the answer is obviously yes!

From a group of 14 bighorn rams who were roaming around Borrego Palm Canon on 2026-01-18 (Photos: Sicco Rood). (3)

Chromosome-scale #genomes from newly sequenced spiders & the whip scorpion, the genetic basis of spinneret emergence in spiders & the complex history & functional importance of arachnid genome #evolution www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #biodiversity #genomics

Versatile fairy shrimp have gone back into dried mud at Clark Dry Lake. They are best known for producing incredibly hardy, drought-resistant eggs (cysts) that can survive for decades in dry mud, extreme temperatures (-310F to 210F), and even outer space (Photos: Sicco Rood).

🕸️ The #silk of this gorgeous little cribellator is not your standard silk - read @evoimec.bsky.social new study here: doi.org/10.1073/pnas... 🕸️

College students over the past 5 years have been traumatized, and yet, they proceed and continue to inspire me

ICE has kidnapped another Indigenous person in Minneapolis. This is the fifth member of the Očhéthi Šakówinnto be taken this month. Statement from Standing Rock:

There's something happening here What it is ain't exactly clear There's a man with a gun over there A-telling me I got to beware I think it's time we stop Children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down

The hazards of failing first-year biology: you invade the wrong pole. 🇦🇶 🐧 🇬🇱 🐻‍❄️

Tom and John Emmel and Sterling Mattoon officially began their work on “The Butterflies of California” book in 1974. Now, more than 50 years after they began, the book draft has officially been published online and is freely available to the public: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/the-... 🦋📕

🧵 1/4 Want to help immigrants in Minnesota? Here are four ways that come highly recommended (three orgs, and one Amazon wishlist by a group of medics) monarcamn.org/about

This is so grim. Science isn’t just something nerds do, but the foundation of the modern world. What the Trump regime has done to US science will harm Americans for generations.

Greenlandic politician Tillie Martinussen on the sovereignty of Greenlanders, the greed in the US, and how they view their land. Also comments on how the US treated Natives, as a very good reason to not want to be a part of the US. youtu.be/xs53IESxz80?...

Timeline Cleanse #タイムライン浄化剤投与

Scenes from the Mojave

Incoming Red-tailed Hawk (she flew right over my head.)

BREAKING: After Donald Trump said Ukraine was the barrier to peace, President Zelenskyy just released this incredible rebuke. Make sure every American sees this and know Russia is to blame for the war.

San Diego Comic-Con will no longer allow AI 'art' to be displayed at their event "Material created by AI either partially or wholly, is not allowed in the art show" This follows backlash from artists after SDCC initially indicated AI-generated work would be permitted

Registration is open for this year’s domestic BugShot macro photography workshop. I’ve attended a bunch of them, (both domestic and international versions) and have enjoyed every one. The instructors are awesome and I’ve made many friends among fellow attendees. www.bugshot.net/bugshot-new-...

Pretty skies in SD tonight

business end of a female trapdoor spider, showing her large fangs look closely, you'll see robust spines on the inner surface of the fangs (the rastellum) in combination with her leg spines, she uses her rastellum to dig burrows, and covers the burrow with a silk + dirt + saliva lid, the trapdoor

Oh man, Tularina, you’re out there somewhere!

Explorer & naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace was born #OTD in 1823. He independently conceived the theory of evolution by natural selection & was the father of biogeography. His portrait hangs at the Society alongside Charles Darwin, commemorating the 1858 reading of their joint paper on evolution.

🙏📯a few non-spider arachnid orders🎺 🙇 Amblypygi - (w/ young!) feeding on a cricket, in cave, Belize Solifugae - under rock(?), Anza-Borrego, California Pseudoscorpiones - forest floor, Oklahoma Schizomida - under log, forest floor, Costa Rica

Lots of snow in the north Coast Ranges !

this NPR write-up includes one of our 2025 new spider species! www.npr.org/2025/12/31/n....

Coyotes howling on Coyote Mountain yesterday. Note the echoes (Video: Sicco Rood). youtu.be/sPo8GyJvxt4

Biologist kidnapped in Mexico news.mongabay.com/short-articl... 🧪🌎

Pretty little scene in far northeastern California, Lassen County

A highlight of my year was attending a Spider Biology Field Course at the Southwestern Research Station in Arizona. Here are four nighttime shots from that amazing week: an Arizona blond tarantula; a Couch's spadefoot toad; a stick insect on a creosote bush; a sleeping male longhorn bee at night.

Number 2 on my top 10 images of 2025. It just resonates deeply In that moment it was just me and the badger it saw me when it came out of its den but it lay there back turned to me showing trust and I’m not sure we humans always deserve the trust of wildlife anymore #badger ##wildlifephotography

@mhedin.bsky.social recognize your namesake from Arizona?

Owens Dry lakebed, not so dry, which is cool I wonder if one day we will let the lake live again

drunk on pollen .... enough is enough already! Melissodes (I believe), Anza Borrego DSP, Oct 25

how about a little candy cane feather pede on this Christmas Day!

A wet desert lily flowering with a grand view while storm clouds are moving in from the west this morning (Photo: Sicco Rood).

and the sun sets at Bosque del Apache

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!

that time of the year when this little species (Habronattus ustulatus) becomes active found this little male yesterday in eastern San Diego County, In-Ko-Pah County park, perched on little pieces of granite and quartz along wash edges

A packrat (Neotoma) nest made completely out of cholla cactus, crazy spiny impenetrable fortress But I’m left wondering, how the hell ??…

Day 19 of my 2025 Favorites: Schizomida mom and her cluster of baby clones! I've had many generations of these tiny arachnids from 2 females (they're parthenogenic) collected in a public park near Miami a few years ago, and happened to spot this one with her babies one evening. Delightful lump 🥹