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Morgan Jackson, PhD

@bioinfocus.bsky.social
4.9K followers 578 following 135 posts

Entomologist fascinated by flies (#Diptera), biodiversity & taxonomy. Telling the story of biodiversity, one species at a time. He/Him. Profile pic: Kerascoët

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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Very cool!
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Jen Cross @jencross.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Champion of the fruit fly lek. 🏆 Zygothrica sp. Intag Refugio, Ecuador
A small fly with bright red elongated eyes, tan on the underparts and legs with brown and black stripes on the thorax. It is standing on a mushroom.
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Jen Cross @jencross.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
We noticed these fruit flies are behaving like tiny big horn sheep of fly world so we went back today to see if I could get some photos of the action. Here you have it, a play in 4 acts! Make me wonder if they evolved the elongated eyes for this purpose. Zygothrica sp. Intag Refugio, Ecuador
A pair of flies smashing their heads together with front legs clasped. The have black on the abdomen, brown on the thorax, and bright red eyes, They are fighting on the top of a mushroom.The fight continues with the challengers evenly balanced. 

A pair of flies smashing their heads together with front legs clasped. The have black on the abdomen, brown on the thorax, and bright red eyes, They are fighting on the top of a mushroom.The fight continues with the fly on the right seeming to gain an upper hand and pushing the fly on the left backwards. The fly on the right is putting all his might into the battle, back legs in the air. 

A pair of flies smashing their heads together with front legs clasped. The have black on the abdomen, brown on the thorax, and bright red eyes, They are fighting on the top of a mushroom.The fly on the right emerges victorious with the fly on the left exiting toward the back of the scene. 

A pair of flies smashing their heads together with front legs clasped. The have black on the abdomen, brown on the thorax, and bright red eyes, They are fighting on the top of a mushroom.
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
They can, and they do! There’s research to suggest that some flies drink alcohol (naturally-fermented fruits usually but also our hard stuff) to become more attractive to mates, and also to drown their sorrows when they can’t find a mate.
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Hannah A. Brazeau 🇨🇦 @habrazeau.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
If you can, please donate to help with funeral costs and supporting her family. RIP Sheila Colla. www.gofundme.com/f/support-sh...
gofundme.com
Donate to Support Sheila Colla Through Cancer Treatment, organized by Anna Penner
There is a good chance that you already know Sheila Colla: she is a brillian… Anna Penner needs your support for Support Sheila Colla Through Cancer Treatment
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Thank you Andrea!
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
It is! Nice to finally have a starting point for folks to work on and compare their finds against, both for expanding records and for building towards population monitoring. Long, long ways to go, but we’re moving in the right direction.
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
There’s another series of papers (zookeys.pensoft.net/issue/1251/) that have looked at the overall diversity and number of BINs from Canadian localities, but there is no work reconciling them one-to-one beyond the BOLD database itself to my knowledge
zookeys.pensoft.net
The Biota of Canada – A Biodiversity Assessment. Part 1: The Terrestrial Arthropods
This issue will contain a series of invited papers that assess species diversity for all groups of terrestrial arthropods in Canada. These papers will provide known species richness for each family, a...
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
The checklist also serves as a provincial checklist as every species’ known distribution is broken down, as well as an up-to-date catalog of species-level taxonomy and synonyms for all included species.
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Rémi Hébert of Environment and Climate Change Canada was the major driving force behind this work as part of the WILD Species project in Canada assessing the status of our natural heritage. We still have lots of work to do building up baseline data for populations, but this is a huge first step!
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
In Canada, we can now say with confidence that we share our home with 9,777 species of flies. Other estimates suggest this is only about half of the true diversity however, so we have lots more work to document and study them all!
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
For the first time in over 100 years we have an up-to-date checklist of Canadian Diptera. Really proud to have been a part of this effort!
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Pensoft @pensoft.net · 07/03/2025
New book: A checklist to identify all known species of flies in Canada! doi.org/10.3897/ab.e... "This checklist is a fundamental piece of work that will guide the assessment of the conservation status of those species." @bioinfocus.bsky.social
Cover of "Checklist of the Flies (Diptera) in Canada" featuring two fly images, with contributors and publisher details below.
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Hi! :) And thanks!
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Thanks Donna!
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Thanks Andrea!
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NSERC ResNet @nserc-resnet.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
A very warm welcome to ResNet's Interim Network Manager: Dr. Morgan Jackson (you can follow him @bioinfocus.bsky.social)! He will be responsible for overseeing ResNet’s daily operations while our permanent Network Manager Nicole Middlemiss is on leave.
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Craig B @mutillidae.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Soldier on. #NaturalHistoryCollections #Macrophotography #FocusStacking #FlyDayFriday #FlyFriday #FlyDay
Upper left lateral view of a soldier fly (Stratiomyidae) against a grey background. The head is yellow, the large oval eyes are dark and the dark antennae are quite long (for a fly). The thorax and abdomen are black, slight metallic, white white maculations formed by areas of white, appressed setae. There are two horn-like projections extending back from the posterolateral corners of the scutellum. They curve inward and are slightly tapered, so they really look like horns.
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Arboreal brittle stars! Get Nature on the line, quick lol
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Dr. Andrea Wishart @wishartae.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Last year, my fantastic co-author @bioinfocus.bsky.social and I published this note observing squirrels foraging insect galls in the Yukon: www.canadianfieldnaturalist.ca/index.php/cf... #SquirrelAppreciationDay
canadianfieldnaturalist.ca
Red Squirrel (<i>Tamiasciurus hudsonicus</i>) feeding on Balsam Poplar (<i>Populus balsamifera</i>) galls induced by aphids | The Canadian Field-Naturalist
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E. Yağmur Erten @yagmurerten.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Do you have any favourite evolutionary biology resources that are not textbooks? E.g. podcast/youtube series or episodes, blogs, websites, news articles.. I am trying to diversify the resources I recommend to the students in the courses I teach 🤓
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Jane Waters 🏳️‍⚧️🐜🇵🇸 @lovetheants.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Coming out, transitioning, and being trans is HARD. Fortunately, there's a lot we can all do, whether cis or trans, to help our colleagues and strengthen our departments. In addition to all the actions we can take, we've also gathered a list of resources.
Hyperlinked list of resources to create a gender inclusive environment, advocate for name changes, improve information accessibility, and consider daily language and use. The full text document and the links can be accessed on this linktree: https://linktr.ee/trans_inclusion
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Jane Waters 🏳️‍⚧️🐜🇵🇸 @lovetheants.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Collaborating with @rin-krichilsky.bsky.social and Kanako Shimizu, we put together what's basically a top-ten list of ways to help foster trans inclusivity and awareness within our scientific and academic communities and would love if you could help share the guide!
How to Support Trans Colleagues

Create a Gender-Inclusive Environment

Research institutional, governmental, local, and other bureaucratic procedures and policies that recognize and support gender transition. 

Support training and advocacy for colleagues’ personal/professional safety (ex. in fieldwork, lab work, conferences, institution visits, affinity groups). 

Establish and/or identify gender-neutral bathrooms throughout your building. Implement trans-inclusive recruitment and hiring procedures. 

Acknowledge intersectionality and the unique needs and barriers that someone with multiple marginalized identities may face.

Consider the importance of representation in your field.

Advocate for Name Changes

Research institutional, governmental, local, and other bureaucratic procedures and policy to recognize and support an individual’s name change.

Identify journals in your field that allow authors to change their names post- publication.

Improve Information Accessibility

Publicly share information on inclusive practices throughout your departments and institution. (Ensure the content centers and is created by trans people.)

Consider Daily Language & Use

Decrease use of gendered terms to avoid exclusionary language.

Ask for personal pronouns. 

List on all public-facing directories, and consider including them in email signatures and on professional websites.

Practice discretion. Don’t out your colleagues without their consent.
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Jane Waters 🏳️‍⚧️🐜🇵🇸 @lovetheants.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Want to know how to support trans and gender nonconforming colleagues things you can literally do right now to help? Check out the first link here for a new two-page handout to share widely! linktr.ee/trans_inclus...
linktr.ee
Transgender Inclusion | Linktree
Resources for transgender inclusion in STEM and beyond.
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Gwen Pearson @bug-gwen.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
What have I been working on for the last.... uh... 8 years? This 🧵 🐝🪲 entomologytoday.org/2025/01/15/l...
entomologytoday.org
The Lesson Hive: A Collaborative K-12 Teaching Space
The Lesson Hive is a database of standards-aligned and reviewed K-12 teaching resources about insects and other arthropods.
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Holy cow, this is incredible! Congratulations on the big reveal and thank you for putting so much work into developing such a great resource!
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Gwen Pearson @bug-gwen.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
A tricky #SpotTheInsect!
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Lindsay Lindhult, PhD | Science Illustrator & Arthropod Artist @lindzeamays.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Little globular springtail doodle in colored pencil and ink. Inspired by @the_forest_tin on IG, one of my fav macro photographers. 💚 #SciArt 🎨🕷️🐡🐞🌱
Globular springtail doodle using colored pencil and ink
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Evelyndroid's Aperture Science and Bugge-Finding 🏳️‍⚧️🕷️ @apsciencebylyn.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Horsefly boy in flight, very buzzy 🤎
Large horsefly with an orange booty, caught in flight with his wings motion-blurred
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Rob is an author yes, but Dick is the first author, along with another expert who keyed in on the identity via iNaturalist
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Oh yes, he has a research and conservation biology background! He’s from a family of significant naturalists and has contributed lots of time and energy before going into politics to studying and protecting biodiversity in Canada
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Dr. Catherine Scott @cataranea.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Exciting #Arachnology news! It's been clear for some time that spiders have 'noses' on their legs but we didn't really understand how they smell airborne sex pheromones. Now we do! Gabriele Uhl & colleagues have identified the sensilla responsible: 🕷️🧪 www.uni-greifswald.de/en/universit...
uni-greifswald.de
“Olfaction with legs – spiders use wall-pore sensilla for pheromone detection"
Spiders can smell: they use pore-covered sensilla that are similar to hairs to detect volatile substances. This is the key finding of a study that has been published in the January 2025 issue of the s...
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Canadian Member of Parliament Richard Cannings found an unusual antlion in his backyard, posted it to iNaturalist, and just published it as being a new genus record for Canada in a regional society journal journal.entsocbc.ca/index.php/jo... Can't ask for much more in an elected representative TBH!
journal.entsocbc.ca
Chaetoleon pusillus (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae: Brachynemurini), a new genus and species of antlion for Canada | Journal of the Entomological Society of British Columbia
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Chris Martine | Plant People FTW @martinebotany.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Do you teach field-based courses? Or hope to? Wrote a brief commentary for the new Plant Science Bulletin on why these course need to be offered/supported. TL;DR the kids need to get outside... where integrative biology lives. #SICB2025 #STEMeducation digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_journ/21...
digitalcommons.bucknell.edu
Field-Based Courses Still Matter, but not Like They Used To
Increasingly, field-based courses are providing the first real opportunities for students to experience nature in meaningful ways. As a baseline, even before the content delivery and the graded assess...
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
Ribbitcoin
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
I’m teaching intro evolution this term for the first time as well, and I harvested so many good points and resources from this thread! Thank you!
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Lars Brudvig @lars-brudvig.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
What do we have here? This is a scar from historical resin extraction in a longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) tree. It helps to explain an important era of American history...and also the decline of one of my top two favorite tree species. A thread.
A scarred longleaf pine tree, following historical resin extraction
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
Those were the work of @jjmlynarek.bsky.social and a team of artists and professional insect mounting specialists! Some of the smaller mounts of species in natural, life-like poses are incredible in their detail
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Michael Matschiner @mmatschiner.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
We’re now offering two permanent positions at the Bavarian State Collection for Zoology in Munich, those as curators for Diptera and Hymenoptera: snsb.de/kurator-ento... snsb.de/kurator-ento... Both announcements are in German, but German skills are not required at the time of application.
snsb.de
SNSB – Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns » Kurator für Entomologie – Diptera (w/m/d) – Zoologischen Staatssammlung
Eine weitere WordPress-Website
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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 29/12/2024
Ronald McWeevil isn’t real, he can’t hurt y-
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Morgan Jackson, PhD @bioinfocus.bsky.social · 29/12/2024
Great story, great art, great resource at the end. Also reposting as part of Canadian Team P-AOWOO-P
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Petra Korlević @petrathepostdoc.bsky.social · 26/12/2024
For this amazing December 2024 edition of #InverteFest I contributed a "checkerboard of flies" for your invertebrate viewing pleasure 🪰🦟 Because the variety of flies always blows my mind
a 3x3 checkerboard with various digital paintings on flies on alternating white and black background. from top to bottom going right: Drosophila melanogaster, Syrphus ribesii, Calliphora vomitoria, Sabethes sp., Anopheles sp., Gymnosoma rotundatum, Scaeva pyrastri, Nephrotoma flavescens, Bombylius discolor
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Katy Chalmers @katypillar.bsky.social · 26/12/2024
Happy #Invertefest! I love to draw creatures with fantastical elements and one of my favorites to draw is beetles! #SciArt #Beetles #Art
Three rows of three beetles each. Each row is painted and decorated differently. The top is tie dye, the middle is fluffy white clouds on a blue sky colored beetles and the bottom row is deep indigo beetles spotted with white stars to look like a space beetle. #InverteFest #Invertfest
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Biological Survey of Canada @biologicalsurvey.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
The latest BSC newsletter is now available at biologicalsurvey.ca/publications...
biologicalsurvey.ca
Newsletters – Biological Survey of Canada
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Margarita Lopez-Uribe @mmlopezu.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Fly pollinators are even more vulnerable to rising global temperatures than bees. 🌍🐝🐞 Protecting all pollinators is essential for our ecosystems and food security." www.psu.edu/news/researc...
psu.edu
Pollinators most vulnerable to rising global temperatures are flies, study shows | Penn State University
Despite their reputation as buzzing nuisances, flies serve a critical role as some of the Earth’s most prolific pollinators — and new research led by Penn State scientists suggests they are increasing...
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Colin Schultz @colinschultz.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
It's my last day at Hakai. Does that mean it's time to run through my favourite news stories from the past decade?
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Josh Gibson, Ph.D. @drstrangeant.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Possibly my favorite #microCT scan I've done all year - A mosquito pupa (Culex pipiens)! 🥰
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Auriel Fournier @rallidaerule.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Illinois Natural History Survey is hiring a new Director (my boss!) illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree... Come lead an amazing organization that has a really powerful applied mission, and some excellent scientists :)
illinois.csod.com
Director, Illinois Natural History Survey
Duties & ResponsibilitiesResearch ◦ Independently coordinate and develop a significant research/investigations program, secure associated fun...
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Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 17/12/2024
Aurora part 2.
On page 5, they fly up through a spiral of aurora. He says "We could stop flying!" and she says "We'd lose time if we stopped!" She says "Do you think this thing is dangerous? Is it... alive? Can it hear us?" And he replies "I don't know." Pause. "But I like the way it matches your feathers."On page 6, the female bird pauses, aurora reflecting in her eye and dancing behind her, close to the same color as her feathers. She says "Let's keep flying." They fly through swirls of green and pink aurora.On page 7, they fly through the aurora that arcs and dances. They're having fun. A close up on the female's eye shows the aurora reflecting. A shooting star streaks by. The birds fly on through the night.
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Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 17/12/2024
New comic: aurora part 1. Based on a comment by @nepeteaa.bsky.social a couple months back.
A seven-page comic. On page 1, the sun begins to set over an autumnal scene in a forest. The sun continues to set, reflected in the eye of a bird. The sun finishes setting, reflected in the bird's eye and zoomed out a bit. The bird has various hues of stormy blue feathers. The sun has fully set and the stars are out, and the bird, a female Black-throated Blue Warbler, says "It's time."
On page 2, the bird says "Ready for another night of migration?" to a male Black-throated Blue warbler, who replies "I ate all the good bugs in this forest, so, sure." She says "Okay. Let's do this." They take off from a branch, saying "Up up up." They hit their cruising altitude and fly through the starry darkening sky.
On page 3, they are flying along and the male says "I think this trip is going pretty good so far-" And the female interrupts "Wait." There's a green reflection in her eye. She says "There's something behind us." They turn and see the eerie glimmer of aurora. The male says "Oh"On page 4, the male says "What is... Is that wildfire smoke?" And the female says "I don't think so." They book look alarmed. He says "Should we fly faster? Try to get away?" and she says "No, now it's in our flight path, too!" The aurora has spread and dances through the sky. Some of it becomes pink. He says "It's everywhere!" and she says "I... I don't understand."
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