iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Any ideas for uses of this double-pronged ento pin? I guess I could have it hold up a label in between the prongs like a little signpost, but you can do that with a regular pin if you so wished.

A photo of an entomological pin with one round brown pinhead conjoining two pins, held slightly open by pale fingers.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I'm obsessed with this common bronzewing that we banded two weeks ago. When it was in the bag for transport and unable to see anything, it made the softest little "coo, coo" noises you could only hear by holding it up to your ear 🥺 #birdbanding #birdinthehand #pigeons

A photo of a common bronzewing pigeon (Phaps chalcoptera). The bird's subtly colored purple-orange-blue-grey head with white markings around the black eyes pokes out of a white bag, pale fingers encircling its body in the bag.

A photo of a common bronzewing pigeon (Phaps chalcoptera). Its body is partially covered by a white bag while pale hands hold and manipulate the bird, showing off the iridescent green-orange feathers on the upper wing above the brown secondary flight feathers.

A photo of a common bronzewing pigeon (Phaps chalcoptera). The bird's body is partially in a white bag while pale hands hold and manipulate the bird, showing off its buffy orange underwing.

A photo of a common bronzewing pigeon (Phaps chalcoptera). Pale hands firmly encircle the bird's body, and bird and hands are lit by strong sunlight.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

I just finished curating all the Apidae at the Australian Museum, huzzah! They're ready for volunteer handling now so we can get those specimens databased. We might be needing more volunteers soon, though. #museumlife #bees

A pinned specimen with labels of a yellow-brown Habropoda digger bee from Malaysia in a white unit tray. The bee's tongue is extremely long and curls in front of it, touching the bottom of the unit tray.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

I saw some adorable roseate sundews (Drosera spatulata) while camping last weekend and now I want to grow some to eat my fungus gnats, but I don't know if I'm ready for that level of (non-mineral-water-buying/collecting) commitment. Beecroft Weapons Range, NSW. 🇦🇺 #plants

A photo of 5 round, low-growing, pinkish-red plants on sandy soil surrounded by sparse grass.

A close-up photo of a round pinkish-red plant, a sundew, showing off its predatory droplet-covered leaves.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I've been working on long-tongued bees in the family Apidae, and this lady Amegilla (blue-banded bee) is quite stunning. The shapes! The colors! The pizazz! #WorldBeeDay #bees #museumlife

A photo of a pinned blue-banded bee specimen facing left. The bee has gold-orange fur on its middle segment and legs, and its black rear segment has iridescent blue bands. Its golden hind legs are posed as if the bee is high stepping, and its long orange tongue ends in a spiral.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Oooh, I didn't know it was #WorldBeeDay! Here's an orchid bee for the multi-level marketers (MLM). These bees have long tongues for lickin', and the males collect flower fragrances in their legs to woo females. #bees

A digital art drawing of an iridescent orchid bee in light green and sky blue, with white hairs on the bee's body and legs. The bee's tongue sticks out, touching the letters "MLeM" in the same colors.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Another good one for NSW could be the botany bay diamond weevil. Please... national/state/territory insect emblems could fix us... or at least make me very happy.

A teal-blue weevil beetle with black patterns facing right, perched on green wattle branches with wattle leaves in the background.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Carpenter bee with an ant head earring. It's a hyme-eat-hyme world our there. #museumlife #bees

A photo of a pinned large black and yellow carpenter bee specimen facing right. The bee's right antennae has a small black ant's head attached by its clamped jaws.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

More photos, since I couldn't get over how beefy they are compared to swallows.

A photo of a pale hand holding a dark gray bird, fingers encircling the bird's whole body.

A photo of a gray bird whose feet are being held by one hand while another hand holds its wing open, showing the wing's pale gray and white underside.

A photo of a gray bird being held by its feet. The photo is slightly out of focus at the bird's big brown eyes and forward-facing beak.

A photo of a gray bird seen top-down, being held by its feet by a pale hand.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Woodswallows are cool. They look like and are named after swallows (family Hirundinidae), but woodswallows are in the same group as butcherbirds and Australian magpies (family Artamidae). 🇦🇺 #birdbanding #birds

A photo of a brown hand holding a gray bird by its feet. The bird's wings are open, showing white and light gray undersides.

A photo of a pale hald holding a gray bird by its feet. The bird's head is turned to the side, showing its thick blue-gray black-tipped beak.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Australian magpie, Gymnorhina tibicen, being firmly grasped. #birds #birdbanding

A photo of an Australian magpie being held by a pale hand over a wooden table covered in various bird banding tools.

A photo of an Australian magpie being held by pale hands over a wooden table covered in various bird banding tools. One hand grasps the bird's neck and back, the other its legs.

A photo of an Australian magpie being held by pale hands over a wooden table covered in various bird banding tools. One hand holds the bird's neck and torso, the other holds a wing. Another person's arm is visible in the leaf litter background.

A photo of an Australian magpie being held by pale hands over a wooden table covered in various bird banding tools. One hand holds the neck and torso, the other spreads the bird's left wing open so the pattern is visible.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Hey. Phone call for you (the phone WILL bite your ear off) #birds #birdbanding

A photo of a kookaburra being held by a pale hand that thrusts the bird forward as if offering a telephone receiver. In the outdoor sparsely wooded background there are bags at the base of a tree, and a folding table and chair are nearby.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

I finally finished editing my photos from my Easter bird banding trip. We caught two species of pardalote, spotted (Pardalotus punctatus) and striated (P.striatus). Striated pardalotes are further divided into subspecies, two of which are compared in the third pic. #birds #birdbanding

A photo of a highly patterned bird, a spotted pardalote held in photographer's grip, its legs held firmly between fingers.

A photo of a small bird, a striated pardalote held in photographer's grip, its legs held firmly between fingers.

A photo of two small striated pardalote birds held by two different people. Fingers hold each bird's wing spread to show the fine white lines on the feathers.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Can I offer you some nice neon cloak-and-dagger cuckoo bees in these trying times? It's cool to be working on museum specimens of this electric blue bee I saw once almost half a year ago. #bugsky #bees

A photo of two pinned bee specimens with labels inside a white unit tray. The bees are black with neon blue hair forming broad stripes on their bodies.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

I never know if I should collect specimens or not. According to someone on iNat, this beetle is Carenum decorum, and "the only other records... for this species are the type series which were taken" more a hundred km away. I'm glad it was identifiable by photo. Dubbo, NSW. 🇦🇺 #WildOz #beetles

A photo of a blackish-purple, slightly iridescent ground beetle with its right legs pinched between pale fingers to hold it in place.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Although with labels like this, maybe keeping the A.melliferas to one drawer won't be possible.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

I'm in Honeybee Hell. I'm spacing the Apis mellifera specimens so volunteers can handle them and add labels, I hope I can keep them all within one drawer 😬 #bees #museumlife

A photo taken from a low angle of the inside of an insect specimen drawer filled with hundreds of specimens of a single species, the European honeybee (Apis (Apis) mellifera). The white unit trays of specimens are reflected blurrily in the drawer's glass lid.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Some other green bees for your viewing pleasure.

A photo of a pinned green bee specimen, facing left with labels underneath.

A photo of a white unit tray full of green bee specimens, held up by a pale hand wearing a black watch in front of computer monitors.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Boots with the fur (green fur). Amegilla aeruginosa bees in the same genus as blue-banded bees are delightfully green-to-yellow, even after 30+ years. #bees #WildOz

A photo of a pinned bee specimen facing left with wings and legs spread. The bee's leg and body fur is green, fading to yellow at the hind end.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Saw a wing-tagged ibis yesterday. Apparently all the tagged ibises around Sydney are the work of one guy who's studying ibis adaptation to urban environments (I forget his name).

A photo of a white ibis bird with a black featherless head, thick pink-black legs, and black plumed tail feathers stands on a waist-high partition in an area busy with human pedestrians and bicyclists. The ibis has a green wing tag on its right wing facing the viewer.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Got a lifer bird today, no.870 Eastern Barn Owl (Tyto javanica, split from T. alba by eBird in 2024). I was going to travel to the U.S. in Dec, but maybe that's no longer a good idea with my non-USAmerican partner. #WildOz

A digiscoped photo of a barn owl heavily obscured by needle-like leaves.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Bug suitcase. Lepidopterist Dave Britton donated over 50 of these to the Australian Museum, and they're quite fun to go through as I transfer them into unit trays. #museumlife #bugsky

A photo of the inside of a wooden box held open by a hand. Both sides of the box are covered with small insects on pins, mostly moths and butterflies.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Who do I have to talk to to get some designated Australian insect emblems? I think Extatosoma tiaratum, the giant prickly stick, would be very cool for NSW or QLD. #bugsky #WildOz (old art from my RedBubble)

A digital art piece of a giant prickly stick insect in orange, blue, and white. Text around the insect in the same colors reads "STICKing to my FRIENDS".

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

An itchy pied butcherbird (Cracticus nigrogularis) caroling the wetlands. Tuggerah, NSW. 🇦🇺 #birds

A digiscoped photo of a black-and-white bird on a powerline, seen from the front. The bird's head is thrown back singing and its wings are slightly spread.

A digiscoped photo of a black-and-white bird on a powerline, seen from the side. The bird is scratcing its head with a foot.

A digiscoped photo of a black-and-white bird on a powerline, seen from the side. The bird's head is thrown back in song.

A digiscoped photo of a black-and-white bird on a powerline, seen from the side.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

A bamboozlement of beetles. I helped with sorting out some recognizable beetle families from accessions (including foreign material) yesterday. The diversity of design is delightful, and the storage conditions sometimes frightful. #museumlife #insects #beetles

Aphoto of a large brown beetle with thin black markings like patterns on wood.

A photo of two iridescent green beetles with cinched "waists", mounted on a card with text that reads "Adelaide R., N. Territory, H.W. Brown".

A photo of a unit tray with 9+ colorful pin-mounted beetle specimens of various sizes and patterns.

A photo of a unit tray crammed full of various brown and black beetles, mounted haphazardly on pins and cards.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Bottoms up. Megachile hertlei from Papua New Guinea, 1927. #bees #bugsky

A photo of a black and orange bee specimen on a corroded metal pin. The orange-tipped third body segment is arched upwards.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Two of them... two unit trays of cramped hell..........

A close-up photo, taken at a low angle, of a unit tray brimming with pinned bee specimens. The bees are uniformy tiny and black, with black pins spearing them to slightly yellowed handwritten labels.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

I find myself lost in a forest of unbeelievable trepidation. Each pin prickles my awareness of hand cramps yet to come. #bugsky #bees

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Blue eyes white lacewing, at least 3cm long. Nymphes myrmeleonoides, Granville, NSW. 🇦🇺 #WildOz #bugsky

A large orange insect perches vertically in casuarina leaf "needles". The insect has huge blue-black eyes and white tips on its long abdomen and wings.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Comin' outta my cage and I've been doin' just fine... until an entomologist takes me and my house to make a display-worthy pin mount. Megachile serricauda from 1983 near Coorabakh National Park, NSW. 🇦🇺 #bugsky #bees

A photo of a pinned bee specimen and its cocoon-nest made of leaf fragments. The main pin on the left goes through the brown tubular nest, a strip of foam, and a label ("K.202848"). The black-gray-yellow bee is pinned to the foam block in front of the opening to the nest, as if it had just emerged. The circular lid also made of leaves is pinned to the foam block in front of the bee.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Hindlegs go wheeeeeee!! Ensign/hatchet wasp, family Evaniidae, collected from the museum in 1980. These guys parasitize roaches, so there's a lot of specimens from urban areas. 🇦🇺 #wasps

A photo of a pinned parasitoid wasp specimen. The tiny black wasp is almost the same size as the label below it on the pin, and the wasp's hind legs are raised forward in an unnatural way. The label reads "AustMuseum, Sydney NSW. 17-Dec 1980, D.K. McAlpine" with line breaks instead of commas.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

The Easter bilby appeared on my desk this morning, heralding the cooler temperatures of the autumn harvest season (finally).

A chocolate sculpture of a bilby wrapped entirely in labelled pink foil on an office desk.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Before and after a remounting job. Megachile serricauda from 1944, now going for a landing on soft foam. #bugsky #bee

A photo of a pinned bee specimen. The pin that goes through the bee and the three paper labels underneath is bent at a few different spots, while a second straight pin holds only the labels.

A photo of a pinned bee specimen. The pin that goes through the bee has been inserted into a foam block, and a second pin goes through the foam and the three labels. The bee is positioned so it looks like it's coming in to land on the foam.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Binoculars photos of the partial eclipse from Bondi Beach, Sydney just now. You can really see her face in the second pic like she's wearing a jaunty hat. #eclipse #lunareclipse

A digiscoped photo of the partial eclipse. Less than half of the red-colored moon is visible behind clouds and Earth's shadow.

A digiscoped photo of the partial eclipse. Only the top left third of the gold-colored moon is hidden by Earth's shadow. The shadows on the moon look like an eye, nose, and mouth, with the other eye obscured by shadow.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Platystomatid flies go hard. Stalk-eyed flies and giraffe flies are only two of the possibilities. Achias rothschildi and Angitula (Giraffomyia). #bugsky

A photo of four fly specimens on pins with labels in a white tray. Two of the flies have eyes on the ends of long stalks. The trail is labelled "Achias rothschildi", though the first few letters are cut off.

A photo of five fly specimens on pins with labels in a white tray, with similar trays around it. The flies have small heads on long "necks". The tray is labelled "Angitula (Giraffomyia)".

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Sharp bees. Making unit tray labels for bees is a bit of a pain in the ass since they get revised so often, so I have to double- and triple-check every name for current validity. They do bee popular. #bee #specimencuration

A photo of 4 bee specimens on pins inside a small white tray lined with foam under a glass cover.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

I spent the day imaging some cool buprestids (jewel beetles) for my first day working at Sydney's Australian Museum. Most beetles were from tropical northern Queensland, which I'd just visited with family last month. I would've remembered if we'd seen any of these big guys, though.

A photo of a computer screen with a shiny red, green, and blue beetle and several specimen labels on it.

A photo of a computer screen with a shiny black, blue, and red beetle and several specimen labels on it.

A photo of an insect specimen drawer full of large orange, brown, and black beetles.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

It's my last day at my bush regen job today. I'll miss the people and the work improving native habitats. What I won't miss is getting stung by bull and jumper ants (genus Myrmecia) every month or two, like this Myrmecia tarsata carrying some mystery meat. Marsfield, NSW. 🇦🇺 #bugsky

A photo of a shiny blue-black ant standing on a piece of wood in leaf litter, carrying a red scrap of presumably food bigger than itself.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

I'm starting a new (indoor, office) job on Monday, so I'll be seeing less bugs. Here's hoping I still get out enough to see some. Tachinid fly (possibly subfamily Exoristinae), Kellyville, NSW. 🇦🇺 #bugsky

A large yellow-and-black striped fly with reddish eyes and black hairs faces right while sitting on a green leaf.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Drew a cover for my extremely blank new dot grid notbook. I'll feel a little bad putting stickers on it, but it was fun.

A drawing in orange highlighter of an Asian dragon over the back and front covers of a dot grid notebook, with accents in yellow and dark red highlighter.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Back to your semi-regularly scheduled bugposting. I saw a handsome pergid sawfly today, probably Lophyrotoma analis. Kellyville, NSW. 🇦🇺 #bugsky #WildOz

A photo of an iridescent blue-green-black insect with an orange-red third body segment, facing down and resting on a white plastic woven sheet against a green background. The insect has four wings and stout feathery antennae.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

My three thousandth observation on iNaturalist was a Smooth Toadfish (Tetractenos glaber). Excellent.

A cropped screenshot of the iNaturalist app, showing the "My Observations" page with "3,000 OBSERVATIONS", "1,718 SPECIES", and "1,354 IDENTIFICATIONS" across the top along with three recent observations of "Smooth Toadfish", "Wedge-tailed Shearwater", and "Australian Pelican".

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Oh yeah, location is the Great Barrier Reef from Port Douglas. Here's a bunch of other hard to see birds from nearby.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Bee butt bo bum. Leioproctus bee metasomas for your viewing pleasure.

A digiscoped phone photo through a microscope of a bee's third body segment. The body is black with faint white hair bands. White text labels the photo as female in the upper right.

A digiscoped phone photo through a microscope of a bee's third body segment. The body is black with faint white hair. White text labels the photo as male in the upper right.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Devilbeast summoning circle. Randwick, NSW. 🇦🇺 #WildOz #birds

A black swan in a hunched-over posture stands in the middle of a loose gathering of feral rock pigeons. The birds are gathered on wide stone steps leading to a lake with coots and ducks in the background.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

And a red-bellied black snake to bring in the snake year. Pseudechis porphyriacus at Cronulla, NSW. 🐍 #WildOz #LunarNewYear

A photo of a shiny black snake resting in long loops between green weeds in woodchips next to a sidewalk.

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Elaine T @elntangle.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

A Lunar New Year dragon to shoo out the dragon year. Australian water dragon Intellagama lesueurii at the Chinese Garden of Friendship, Sydney NSW. 🐉 #WildOz #LunarNewYear

A saturated photo of a brown lizard with black and rusty markings, sitting on a rock next to a lake with green lilypads and grass near the water.

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