iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Is habitat everything? This is a major stream restoration project in a (surprise, surprise) now defunct landfill. I’ve been investigating this site well before the restoration project began, and haven’t ever seen mayflies. But, with a new, aggressive riffle - there they are!

140

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

A matriculation, fish traps, deer on the run and a meeting that went too long. We’re almost ready to get started.

020

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

A noteworthy little friend entered our mix on this outing!

020

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Got out to Shenandoah Universoty’s Cool Spring Campus. It’s a 200 acre forest that has been recovering since the 00s next to Rolling Ridge Conservancy, a forest recovering since the 50s. Really pretty streams and cool bugs.

141

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

We’ve been getting out and into some streams before the winter chill. I promise I have a tarp. We were just too focused/lazy to move it over. Also, Fred.

000

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

My student and I hosted the math department at Shenandoah University to talk about how machine learning can help identify populations of macroinvertebrates. A great experience with a super curious group of students (and instructors)!

040

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

I am super stoked to announce that I have taken a position as an Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.

2100

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

#SFS2025! This was so cool! Amazing talents!

040

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

We’re rounding the corner on capstone research for Spring ‘25. There is something especially team build-y about seining for fish. Also, I love stonerollers this time of year.

050

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

May the end of the school year bring me cool new things to do!

000

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Sneaking them out to the river. Today, my Plant and Animal diversity class got into some water to check out some arthropods. Good times were had by most?

070

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Both of these guys are off to grad school in fall 2025. One is currently looking at reassembly of macroinvert communities after weather events in urban, ag and mountain streams. He just tightened up his sampling strategy in response to the crazy weather in the south. Good idea! I’m a proud momma.

150

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Back at it with the next generation of aquatic scientists! I must rescue them from med school and give them something important to do (just kidding-ish).

0161

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

I love building field stuff, but a Hess is a tall order. Yours looks marvelous!

110

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Assorted macroinvertebrates for #invertfest. The isopod pic was taken by a student and is one of my faves. Pretty, pretty coloration. Can we love an isopod? Are they charismatic? Rizz havin’?

0101

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Is it possible that this is the cutest Fred on BlueSky? I think so. #moodeng #pitbull

010

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Okay! Here’s a gar pun. I didn’t do it, but I like it. #25daysoffishmas

000

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Reflecting on ‘24, we had some fun down here at the University of the Ozarks. Here are a couple of pics from my stream ecology course in Spring. #gamefish #notgamefish #dragonfly #river

0110

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Ah, microvelia makes sense. We did see larger Veliidae at this site in July.

020

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Anyone know what this aphid-like little critter is? It was found in November in an urban creek in Arkansas.

140

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

We put “a bow” in our lab work for the holidays this afternoon. It was nice to bug out one last time in 2024. Here are some odonates! #dragonfly #damselfly

0111

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

I’ll bite on this buggy post. Let’s “bug out!”

010

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Out with these two again for some #urbanecology #streamecology. This was our last day of #fieldwork for 2024. I always grieve the end of fun in the sun, but look forward to fun in the lab. They were very excited about the crayfish we found (😊), so we “struck a pose.” It was a great cambari-dae!

030

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

IYKYK! We just got this Treatise in Limnology set at the University of the Ozarks. Look who it belonged to and where it came from. Students can check these out too (if I ever check them back in 🙂). #limnology

140

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

In my “natural” environment with my intern and her partner. We are creating a long term dataset of macroinverts in forested and residential parks. We collect stream fishes too, but in spring. Macs are fall, spring, and summer. These two were so fun in the field! That matters… #freshwaterscience

060

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

After 70 years of my family fishing an oligotrophic lake (Higgins, MI), we've seen our 1st bluegill. Weird thing is, @whitneyhunt.bsky.social asked my uncle as we were casting, “I wonder why you never catch bluegill in this lake.” I started to respond, “its less likely to…” Then, there she was.

1100

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

I'm so happy to see everyone over here! If we haven't met, my name is Darrin and I'm an aquatic ecologist. I work in streams mainly, but also do some stuff in wetlands and with green stormwater infrastructure. Here are some fun pictures! #unloading #shocking #rock #sasquatch

2260

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

Please join me on 10/30 from 10-11 AM (EDT) for an Invasive Mussel Collaborative webinar discussing how mussel shell deposition in wadable streams can impact native faunal communities differently depending on site history and context. Register below! invasivemusselcollaborative.net/event/webina...

000

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 17/02/2024

Yat? Gone fishin’ with my students at University of the Ozarks.

010

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 11/01/2024

🧪I’m fired up for my Stream Ecology class to be included in the INVURTS project via EREN.💧 This is a great group and if you are interested in joining, hit ‘em up! erenweb.org/active-proje...

040

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 24/12/2023

Family time! Fred, Missy, Higgins Lake and Brenda Lee! We get a week up north and we’re gonna live it up!

000

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 16/12/2023

What a marvelous ceremony to say farewell (for now) to our winter graduates. Congrats Eagles!

010

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 05/12/2023

Arkansas has brown recluses. My cabinets have brown recluses.

120

Darrin Hunt @benthicbuddy.bsky.social · 29/11/2023

From a pool in Arkansas’s Big Piney River to a lab we all share at University of the Ozarks. Wrapping up filtering this straggler sample for macroinvertabrate eDNA.💧🧪