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Ainsley S

@americanbeetles.bsky.social
8.1K followers 1.3K following 8.3K posts

I hope you like pictures of bugs. Curating at CMNH, teaching at CMU, beetling everywhere

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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 6h
ATTENTION COMIC NERDS!
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 2h
this is always the answer
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Scott 𐚁 🦇 Cave 🦇 @hellabarnes.bsky.social · 2h
they really are gods most beautiful dingalings
However, on May 31, 1995, shuttle managers assessed damage to the External Tank of STS-70 caused by nesting flicker woodpeckers. The damage consisted of about 71 holes (ranging in size from 4 inches in diameter to 1/2 inch in diameter) in the ETs thermal protection foam insulation. Technicians installed safeguards against additional damage.
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brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Folks, you have to observe B for this to work!
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Order Rodentia @orodentia.bsky.social · 10h
‘Humour makes us Cree, makes us human’: Kent Monkman’s first public sculpture is a condominium for beavers on Toronto’s waterfront www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/09/30/k...
theartnewspaper.com
Kent Monkman’s first public sculpture is a condominium for beavers on Toronto’s waterfront
The permanent commission for the new Lassonde Art Trail reflects on the past, present and future of North America with Monkman’s characteristic quirky twists
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Phil Knutson, PhD @philknutson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Lignin chemistry!! I’ve drawn a line tree with the lignin polymer behind it. I’ve drawn it as one single polymer throughout! This messy, highly irregular biopolymer gives plants structural strength and helps protect their cell walls. #sciart #chemsky
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Mike Keesey @tmkeesey.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
PhyloPic is having an October fundraiser. The goal is to raise enough money to cover web hosting for the past six months. Please share the link, and chip in a bit if you can! www.phylopic.org
phylopic.org
PhyloPic
PhyloPic is an open database of free silhouette images of animals, plants, and other life forms, available for reuse under Creative Commons licenses. Download silhouettes for use in educational materi...
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John P. Friel, Ph.D. @friel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Check out this lovely profile of the University of California, Davis’s Peter Wainwright, whose lifelong fascination with fishes inspired a remarkable career in research and teaching. Peter was my postdoc advisor years ago when he was at Florida State University, and is awesome dude and mentor.
ucdavis.edu
Among the Academies: A Lifelong Fascination With Fish
For Peter Wainwright, the academic path was simple: he simply followed his fascination with fish.“I dare say there wasn't a lot of deep thought about what direction I should go in my life,” he said. “...
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
100% in favor of the assorted anime names coming out for new spp, be they common or scientific
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C. Chen @ Jamsteeeec @squamiferum.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
[New Paper] Presents the first record of tubeworm-parasitic copepod Dirivultus spinigulatus from Japan! A range extension from Papua New Guinea. And a new Japanese name, based on a devil fruit from the manga series ONE PIECE! OPEN ACCESS in the journal Species Diversity: doi.org/10.12782/spe...
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Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Well, happy Charles Darwin is “very poorly today & very stupid & hate[s] everybody & everything” to all who celebrate, because he wrote those words in a letter to his friend (and author of Principles of Geology) Charles Lyell 161 years ago today
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
VERY important to note that desmans have their very own species of phoretic leiodid beetle pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
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Michal Barták @michalbartak.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
🚨New paper on tropical moth pollination 🧵1/8 - What happens in tropical ecosystems when the day ends?🌔🦋 Our new review that @robtrop.bsky.social and I wrote highlights moths’ vital role in pollination and outlines research gaps, challenges and biases. Sharing valued! Link: doi.org/10.1017/S026...
doi.org
When the day ends: Review on the importance of nocturnal moths as pollinators in tropical ecosystems | Journal of Tropical Ecology | Cambridge Core
When the day ends: Review on the importance of nocturnal moths as pollinators in tropical ecosystems - Volume 41
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Ooh that’s good Cake Science
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Sometimes I worry about the mental health of the UT insect collection volunteers
Photo of a glass-topped drawer of pinned white and yellow butterfly specimens with the note “undetermined pierids to give up on”
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Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Exciting news! We here at the LSU Museum of Natural Science @lsumns.bsky.social and Dept. of Biological Sciences are looking for Curator and Assistant Professor of Vertebrate Paleobiology! Come work with us! We are fun, supportive and active! lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LSU/jo...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
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Karolina Heyduk @kheyduk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
UConn EEB is hiring a tropical horticulturalist for our greenhouses! It's an awesome collection of both research+teaching/public display, and you get to work with pretty amazing folks (I may be biased). Job listing: jobs.hr.uconn.edu/en-us/job/49... Closes 10/14! 🌴🌿🌵🌺
jobs.hr.uconn.edu
UConn Careers | UConn Careers | University of Connecticut
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I think this alignment chart got Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil reversed
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
sometimes you get Taxonomist Mail that’s almost too on-the-nose
Absolutely beautiful illustrated backside of an envelope (previously unused??) commemorating the USA’s 1976 bicentennial, mailed to me in the year of our lord 2026The contents were carefully wrapped in a page from a philatelists’ catalogue, illustrating stamps that were issued in the “Wallis and Futuna Islands” in 1991-1992
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Prof. Jeff Ollerton @jeffollerton.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Want to conserve #birds, #mammals and other vertebrates? Then don’t forget their #insects. Our new Nature Reviews Biodiversity paper explores the many ways vertebrates depend on insects — for food, shelter, protection and much more. I’ve written about it here: jeffollerton.co.uk/2026/09/30/w...
jeffollerton.co.uk
Want to conserve birds and mammals? Then conserve their insects – our new paper in Nature Reviews Biodiversity sets out the details
It’s sometimes easy to forget quite how much of the living world depends upon insects. That might seem an odd thing for someone who has spent much of his career studying insects and their relations…
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Dolphin Pilot @theamitie.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Nepo baby won fat bear week 🙄
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Gareth @grenow.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Incredible - and I am not being hyperbolic - pictures of a living mycorrhizal network, the first time we can really see what's going on in the rhizosphere - the thing which underpins all life on this planet. eos.org/articles/fun...
eos.org
Fungi Are Holding the Food Web Together. New Research Images This Underground Network. - Eos
By combining computer tomography—the same technology used for medical scans—with a high-powered particle accelerator, researchers have imaged the network of roots, fungal structures, and soil together...
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When you have a trombone and you’re about to make it everybody’s problem
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
WE HAVE CARNEGIE MELLON AT HOME
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mr dog @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Bogong moths! Are they a sign from god? Probably. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The bogong moths are back! Perhaps they are a sign that all is not lost | First Dog on the Moon
Remember – these moths are not an inconvenience they are a blessing
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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🚨We're hiring a new Curator of Mammals!!🚨 🦍🐕🦝🐅🦓🦌🐃🐖🐏🐫🐘🦏🦛🐿️🦔🦇🦥🦦🦨🦘🦡🐋🦭🦒🧸 Come join the Vertebrate Unit at @nhmdk.bsky.social—a fantastic team in the heart of Denmark's beautiful capital! Amazing collections, incredible history. Please share widely! 🧪🏛️ candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
candidate.hr-manager.net
Tenure Track Assistant Professor or Associate Professor and Curator of Mammals
Tenure Track Assistant Professor / Associate Professor, and Curator of Mammals at Natural History Museum Denmark The Natural History Museum Denmark wishes to ap
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
setting up students for final project specimen selection; Stolas imperialis remains popular as always but I'm hoping this year will see a return to the Psychedelic Jones Moth
nice, possibly oversaturated photo of a bold blue and greenish iridescent Neotropical tortoise beetle (Stolas imperialis). I'm sorry I don't have a source for this image, it was posted to reddit and I stolased it from thereThaumatographa jonesi, the psychedelic Jones moth-- photo from Moth Photographers Group, by Arlene Ripley. It's a tortricid in an astonishingly jazzy striped outfit in orange, black, silver, and iridescent purple.
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Mommmmmm all the OTHER museums have life-sized model eurypterids, why can't WE install life-sized model eurypterids
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Bruce Stallsmith @laimosemion.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
If you want to see what NSF grants have been terminated or disrupted, here's an excellent tracker site. There's one for NIH too. 🧪🌍⚒️🐟 #TeamFish
grantwitness.org
National Science Foundation
An independent, up-to-date, grant-level record of federal science funding disruptions in the United States.
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
today we are thinking about: anobiids (well, anobiine ptinids)
paragraph from Arango and Young's "Death-Watch and Spider Beetles of Wisconsin," noting that various species in the genus Oligomerus can have completely different numbers of antennal segments, sometimes even ON THE SAME BEETLE, which beetles are NOT supposed to do
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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
would anyone from a non elite college like to write about this for Contingent because you know we would publish it
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Natural History Collections and Museomics @nhcm.pensoft.net · 29/09/2026
🧬 It has been revealed that high-quality DNA can be recovered from arthropod specimens preserved in formalin for decades, opening new possibilities for evolutionary research using natural history collections. ➡️ Read the full study: doi.org/10.3897/nhcm.3.200681 @uni-kiel.de @leibnizlib.bsky.social
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The people are clamoring for noctuids cc @mothpotato.bsky.social
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Dr Andrew Mahon @andyantarctica.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
NEW SEA SPIDERS :) 🧪🌎🦑🌊 "...found in shallow waters in the Salish Sea, ...the first to be found in that area in more than 100 years..."
npr.org
Scientists discover two new species of sea spiders along Canadian coastline
So far, scientists have identified more than 1,300 species of sea spiders.
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Anita Devineni @anitadevineni.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Emory Biology department is hiring a tenure-track ecologist at any rank. Deadline is Nov 1, link below! As I've said many times before, I couldn't ask for a more supportive department. Our faculty colleagues, dept chair, and admin staff are truly awesome ❤️ apply.interfolio.com/191783
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
For the last 34 years I have been on the faculty of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Biology and have never regretted that decision. This year we are hiring TWO new Assistant Professors in the broad area of Molecular, Cell, Developmental Biology 1/n bio.unc.edu
Front page of the website
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Update: the deaths head moth display looks even better after the museum is closed
Dark spooky hallway in a century-old building, a lone display case full of moth glowing just ahead, as if beckoning the viewer to observe Moth
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
please no, I’m barely cognizant of terrestrial macrofungal diversity
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Almost forgot to ponder the orbs today, what was I THINKING
A pleasant jumble of LBBs viewed thru the microscope, with a mysterious conclave of extremely round little tenebrionids at center stage
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Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Our next step in this project is a bibliography of avian type publications. It's incomplete, but 1120+ refs to 210+ collections is a good starting point! Searchable by institution, country, city. albnd.github.io/bird_types/ #Ornithology #Taxonomy
albnd.github.io
Bird Type Specimen Bibliography — Directory of Collections
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
oh it's a Dutch memento mori still-life but without the self-aware reminders of death
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Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I wrote a bit about the two university museums slated for closure. There is *still* time to do something about each! 🧪🦖
coastalpaleo.blogspot.com
A tale of two university museums: there is still time to save the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Sternberg Museum
September 2026 has been a pretty dispiriting month for American paleontologists. In early September, Drexel University gave a surprise annou...
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
words to live by
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Today's winning Biology All email--in fact this is a contender for best this year
Hi all,

We received a package with no name to GSB 2144 with 80 sheep brains in it. If you are expecting this package, please reach out and we can coordinate the pickup!

Best wishes,
Jenna
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Sarah Hird, PhD @sarahhird.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We discussed Lee et al 2026 in my lab today; they used LLMs to assign aerotolerance to 1100 bacteria. They spot checked 80, found 73-96% accuracy, then proceeded with analysis using assignments from the 96% one. MICRO PEEPS - thoughts on this? I’d ❤️ to hear! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Highlighted paragraph: The aerotolerance status of each bacterial genus (1111 genera) was assigned using both Google Gemini 2.0 and ChatGPT 3.5 on 21 January 2025. Although aerotolerance may vary among species in some genera, aerotolerance is typically reported at the genus level in taxonomic references such as Bergey's Manual and in similar papers (Raulo et al. 2024; Mazel et al. 2024; Hanski et al. 2025). Accordingly, we assigned aerotolerance at the genus level. The text used was ‘Assign aerotolerance status for the following genera’, followed by the list of genera. Google Gemini returned a table of genera and aerotolerance statuses, while ChatGPT responded with text. ‘Facultative anaerobic’ and ‘Aerobic’ were categorised as ‘Aerotolerant’, ‘Anaerobic’ was categorised as ‘Anaerobic’ and everything else was categorised as ‘Unknowns’. After excluding unknown or unassigned genera (n = 891/1111 genera were successfully assigned), the accuracy of these assignments was checked by comparing the assignments obtained with the manually assigned genera in Raulo et al. (2024) using Bergey's Manual of Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria (Trujillo et al. 2015). The correspondence to the previous manual assignment in Raulo et al. (2024) using Google Gemini was 94.5% and ChatGPT was 74.2% (n = 145 or n = 98 genera, respectively). However, the assignments in (Raulo et al. 2024) could also have been incorrect or out of date. So, in addition, 80 random genera were manually checked using Bergey's Manual of Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria (Trujillo et al. 2015) by CL, and the correspondence was 96.3% for Google Gemini and 73.4% for ChatGPT. The assignments from Google Gemini were therefore used for subsequent analysis, please see the supplementary for the full list of assignments (Table S9).
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
FWIW, there are three versions of the death's head hawkmoth associated with this movie: the doctored image on the movie poster; the real deal (Acherontia atropos); and the live stunt moths they used in filming Buffalo Bill's house, which were (IIRC) Manduca sp. with fake skull prosthetics
Movie poster for 'Silence of the Lambs," with Jodie Foster's ghostly visage and a retouched Acherontia atropos specimen (the skull has been altered to look much more human and the colors are brighter than the real thing)Actual specimens of Acherontia atropos in our collection. The "skull" marking is much less distinctly human and varies between individuals.promotional (?) photo of Ted Levine as the movie's lepidoptera enthusiast, posing dramatically with a pair of Manduca who have had little fake nails with skulls painted on them glued to their backs. The moths themselves seem chill about it.
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Our fantastic exhibits team put together a gorgeous mini-exhibit to highlight the CMNH’s most famous insect, “that spooky moth from Silence of the Lambs”
A lone plinth, topped by a jewel case, highlighted by a ceiling-mounted spotlight, holding some bugs. At left, you can see the wall projection of some of Adrian Smith’s fantastic insect flight videos.Within the display is an adult death’s head hawkmoth, an inflated caterpillar of same, a PUPA of same, and the “stunt pupa” prop used in the movie with a secret tube to squirt out nasty goo when sliced into. It’s probably from a Manduca.
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
All glory to the Reduced Mouse
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Part of a longer thread but VERY interesting point: the vendor says their AI tool is “trained on good content only” (in our case, peer-reviewed lit) but this is an easily detectable lie.
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Per my classification system, this is also a weevil
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