Meet the Flower Crab Spider 🕷️ Misumena vatia is a striking ambush predator, waiting on flowers to snatch unsuspecting pollinators. It’s also revealing secrets about plant–predator–pollinator interactions 🌎 🧪 FREE talk w/ @envirosyment.bsky.social on 2 June. 🔗 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1915221742...

Despite the slightly frosty mornings we've had up in Newcastle, Spring is definitely on the way! This also means in the coming months, Flower Crab spiders will be setting up camp on their chosen flowers. Whilst the spiders are waking up from their winter slumber... 1/2

So excited for the bees to come back! All the early bulbs are starting, and spring is sooooo close

We are a go! The student forum will be held at my very own Newcastle University this year, and we've got some cracking talks from some brilliant entomologists lined up for the key note spots, some fab workshops and as always we'll have the ENTOquiz! So please send your abstracts over #entomology

So excited to be giving this talk in June, be ready for everything commensalisms, crab spiders and community science! 🌼🕷️🧬

Not only will you be getting first hand experience in how societies are run behind the scenes but all the connections and opportunities that come will the role are unmatched! @idrisadams.bsky.social and I will be ready to bring you up to speed on everything to do with the position! 🪲🐝🐞

This was my final straw today, thought I could perfectly consolidate these samples into one box, but my ability to hold it together at the end of this field season is being tested

So it's been a minute, July was busy! I finished up my Cornwall fieldwork, drove 500 miles back to the north, had some leave, did my night time spider surveys, graduated from my master's in cardiff, had one car die and bought my first car in my own, and then started my candy stripe spider fieldwork

It's #insectweek !! Here's some of the Flower Crab spiders I've seen this field season, but don't forget to submit your photos to foragingecology.com/spider-spies/

The awaited day two of field work! Come with me to collect in my community data sample and do some nectar sampling 🕷️🌼 #fieldwork #comewithme #flowers #spiders #entomology #arachnology #phdlife #phdstudent #womeninstem

What is spider spies? Speaking a bit about the project, what goes into the kits, and what your participation goes towards! Link for the page: foragingecology.com/spider-spies/ #communityscience #arachnology #entomology #womeninstem #research #spiders #networkecology

Come and do some fieldwork with me! #entomology #spiders #arachnology #womeninstem #fieldwork

This is the kind of Jurassic park I'd be keen for

A very well matched and green cucumber spider, Araniella, tucked away by it's web @britishspiders.bsky.social @sewbrec.org.uk

#EmotionalSupportSpood 🥹 Had to dig up some old spood pics for a friend, found this Phidippus richmani lad 🖤

Welcome to my PhD... #entomology #spiders #arachnology #womeninstem #neurodivergentinstem

Back in the field this week after some very turbulent weather, the spiders are still kicking though! I've now received records across 8 counties for #spiderspies including records from both England and Wales, this weeks task is learning some programming for a nice interacting map for the website!

It's always a joy but the tiniest bit frustrating when I find these guys away from my fieldsite. I spent all afternoon walking fields searching to find one female, and then I'm just walking around my parents farm checking on foals and spot this bright yellow #misumena #arachnology #spider

Despite the dismal weather down here in Cornwall, I managed to get out to sample this afternoon and found this beauty! This one had the reddest abdomen stripes I've seen yet #spiders #arachnology

You've got ~a week left to pre-order our collab w/@franzanth.bsky.social, Bigger Than Binaries! I'll order some extras in orange in a limited size range because I lack a warehouse, I have only a room full of lizards. Printed locally on 100% cotton. Get 'em while you can! squidfacts.bigcartel.com

Today's #fieldwork life lesson was if you're leaving a pan trap in a field of cows 🐮🐄 pin it down because they will steal it

Of course after posting about seeing them so rarely this morning, I found another yellow morph flower crab #spider today, and she was a stonker 🌟🕷️💛

Read about the brilliant #CitizenScience project on crab spiders and their host plants by RES Student Representative @envirosyment.bsky.social - Get involved 🔽

Despite having seen my fair share of these #spiders at this point, I've only found two yellow morph Misumena vatia and they really are gorgeous 🌟💛☀️

The first sample kits are in the post for #spiderspies and should be on their way to the wonderful people already participating in this scheme! We even got spider themed stamps to get them to you guys 🕷️✉️

After such a great response to #spiderspies yesterday and so many people sharing it, I've already had 6 responses in just one day, and 3 people have requested sample kits! So I'll be making a trip to the post office this afternoon to get those sent out to people 🕷️✉️ spider mail here we come

Hi everyone, I am launching a community science scheme "Spider Spies" where we are asking you, to send us pictures and if you're keen and able samples of Misumena vatia, the Flower Crab Spider to investigate their interactions with their host flowers and the invertebrate community around them.

A very different kind of visitor to my parents holiday let this morning, I felt very powerful on the fact that I had the perfect telescopic sweep net to gently rescue this unsuspecting swallow from the eves. Who says being an #entomologist doesn't save lives, atleast that of #birds

Witnessed the gnarly act of an E. ovata taking down a damsel fly, really showing that size does not matter and a great example of interaction between terrestrial and freshwater inverts #spider #arachnology #insects

So the first week of #fieldwork has been a whirlwind! My field site is absolutely gorgeous, I have access to far more land than I thought I would, we've found a great presence of Misumena vatia, and the sun has been blazing #arachnology #entomology #flowers #spiders

My new hi-vis PPE for #fieldwork from my parents. Protected from getting run over by any tractors 🚜

I will drive 500 miles, and I will drive... Er 50 more? 🚗 Not quite how the song goes but after driving from the very north east of the country to as far south west as you can get, I've arrived at my summer #fieldwork site in #cornwall 🌊🏞️🚜

Once again glad to provide my services 🫡 a cute brimstone #moth my mum found back on the farm

Got to love the camouflage skills of crab spiders! Can't wait to get out in a few weeks and start field work on our flower crab spiders over here 🕷️🌼

Today we walked 5 miles, and found some of #insects Northumbria has to offer + a newt for good luck

Gorgeous speckled wood #butterfly (Pararge aegeria) on the morning dog walk today, so great to finally see these guys out! It's been so dry in the northeast it's felt like everything has been holding back, but a little rain has gone some way and things are starting to buzz again

Foraged to pesto to lunch 🌿 loving wild garlic season

I love all the colours #spring brings! We've had a boom of forget-me-nots in the garden creating this lovely sea of blue 🟦💙, along with a corner of yellow archangel 🌟🟨 which give such a little shop of horrors vibe with their hooded #flowers

The #bluebells are out and I have secured a bountiful wild garlic spot! A lot of pesto will be being made 🧄🌿 #foraging

Swapped the S in #STEM for sun today

One of the greatest parts about being the #insect person in my social circles is that people will just send me photos of anything they find that they don't know what it is. My mum just sent me this lovely dor #beetle from back home in Cornwall and it honestly makes my day

Warmed up a lot after it snowed on Saturday. Adult female Habronattus amicus jumping spider. #macrophotography #jumpingspider #habronattusamicus #habronattus

RES CEO @simon2ward.bsky.social with MP @barrygardiner.bsky.social in Parliament this week planning some exciting parliamentary activity to support #InsectWeek this year (23-29 June 2025). Watch this space 🪲 #InsectWeek25 #Entomology #Environment

Just #womeninSTEM things, my hair is currently being held up by a rubber gasket from a centrifuge we had laying around

Thanks @envirosyment.bsky.social for your help carrying equipment and being a Hepple pony whisperer!

A bit of spoof action on one of our Butterfly Conservation sites near Fenny Compton #Invertebrates #Spiders #Arachnids #Spoods #Insects

So one of the joys of being dyslexic #neurodivergentinSTEM, is that sometimes my brain will autocorrect words as I read them. So I just spent 15 minutes reading a paper that I thought was about elk, but was actually about whelks and was confused about how deer were drilling into mussel shells 🤦

And an extra carabid on the way back for good luck! Think this guy might be a harpalus, and you got to love a super shiny purple and green #beetle

Mood of the day: cutting off the leaf you're standing on

Also found some great carabid #beetles up here, although this one was not so happy and did try to make a meal out of my finger 🪲 Fairly certain this is a pterostichus but not sure on the species so will be sending over to @chrisfoster.bsky.social and the recording scheme