iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

First round of malaise trap setups from this past weekend. The vastly under-collected Colorado Plateau (at least for ichneumonids) is one of my main focal areas this year. This first spot is near Kanab, Utah. #ichneumonidae #entomology #malaisetrap #insect #hymenoptera #diptera #trackerwasps

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

The species lists can now be can now be filtered by state or country to help narrow down options for identification. #ichneumonidae #entomology #trackerwasps #insect #taxonomy

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Lots of new features on ichsofna.org: - species lists now provide complete synonym history - hover over a species name to see a popup with images (if available), a distribution map, and a list of recorded hosts - toggle species between Nearctic and worldwide #ichneumonidae #insects #entomology

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

I've added country species distribution data from Taxapad (still need to get data for a few subfamilies) to ichsofna.org. By clicking on a country/state you will get a list of all ichneumonids that occur there (up to 2016). #trackerwasps #ichneumonidae #insect #taxonomy #biodiversity #entomology

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

New #IONA feature! The choropleths on the genus page now not only show diversity per state/province, but when you click on one, it will show you the list of recorded species. ichsofna.org/Ichneumonina... #wasps #JS #ichneumonidae #entomology #biodiversity #taxonomy

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Been adding a lot of new species to ichsofna.org. Here's a stunning species of as yet unidentified Glypta from Wyoming. It's no trivial task to ID these since there are 316 Glypta species in North America! #insect #entomology #ichneumonidae #parasitoid

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Here are the figures for the two new Ctenichneumon species. How many differences can you spot?? #entomology #Ichneumonidae #parasitoid #insects #taxonomy #newspecies

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

While this is a somewhat trivial example, the LLM approach would be much more useful for someone who initially didn't a genus identification and needed to sift through of the ~730 Nearctic ichneumonine species. For fun, here is the species in question: Cratichneumon fossorius.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

The overview of the paper was spot on, too. As the author, I can confirm there aren't any hallucinations, at least for this small example. This could be a game changer for non-experts to get useful information from taxonomic papers. #entomology

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

From website development to image classification apps, I've been interested in improving ID resources for a long time. I've been exploring using NotebookLM as an ID tool and am extremely impressed. Here's a test based on one of my publications: #entomology #taxonomy #ichneumonidae #insects #ai

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Working on describing this couple of new Ctenichneumon species from the Huachuca Mountains in #Arizona. Too bad they are both singletons! Hopefully someone can find the males eventually. #insect #newspecies #entomology #nature #photography #ichneumonidae #trackerwasp #wasp

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Due to the massive diversity of Ichneumon (and other Ichneumonini), it's practically impossible to tell most species apart, like all of these brownish-red females.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Added a few newly collected Ichneumon species to Ichneumonids of North America. Amazingly, I've found 31 different species based on females when records only show 4 for the state! Compare that with 57 species in Main, which is probably a fairly complete inventory. #entomology #newspecies #taxonomy

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

I can't believe no one called me out on this one! It's really just an incredibly obscure species called Pseudoamblyteles homocerus. I had overlooked the small propodeal apophyses. Well, still a new Utah state record!

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

The crucial character is the pectinate tarsal claws which is very unusual among #Nearctic #ichneumonines.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

Very preliminary but below should be a #newspecies and the first record of the #ichneumonid genus Patroclus in the US! This newly collected singleton specimen is from central Utah but Patroclus is neotropical, getting as far north as Mexico. #taxonomy #insects #wasps #Hymenoptera #parasitoid

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

I've only sorted and pinned a very small fraction of the ichneumonds collected by the 6-meter Malaise I have in central Utah. Among other discoveries is a new species of Tricholabus! #Ichneumonidae #newpsecies #entomology #insects #Utah #taxonomy #wasps

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

My friend Cameron Ramsey (chrysomelid taxonomist) and I have a 6-meter Malaise trap set up in a wash in central Utah right now. Between the large trap size and the location, it's collecting an insane amount. There's going to be a lot of bycatch for anyone looking to trade!

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

For all the lep enthusiasts out there celebrating #NationalMothWeek, please check out #ClaridgeTraps for a great light sheet setup! Let me know if you have any questions!

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Happy to announce that my paper describing Anisobas irwini and recording two host records for Anisobas coloradensis is finally out! The species name honors the prodigious collector Mike Irwin who collected the holotype. centerforsystematicentomology.org/insecta_mund... #Ichneumonidae #parasioid

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

New Plagiotrypes species from Arizona I'm working on describing. The genus is otherwise known from eastern NA and the wet neotropics, so it was surprising to discover this one from an arid mountain in southern Arizona.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

There are a ton of undescribed western Ichneumon like this beautiful female from northern Utah. Despite running traps for several years I've only ever collected this specimen and seen one other. #MacroPhotography #insect #ichneumonidae #wasp #newspecies

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Conclusion: If we put in 10% of the effort on imaging that is currently spent on databasing, we could live in a world where anyone with a dissecting scope or macro lens could get a highly accurate automated ID for any insect (at the appropriate taxonomic level).

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

3. Habitus photos will probably work great but perhaps closer shots will be needed to discriminate species/ taxa at lower taxonomic levels. Which shots are needed will likely differ taxon to taxon. #parasitoid #specimen #insectcollection

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

2. The coding involved with training, testing, and deploying a model is trivial. The real problem is capturing training images. That can be done very rapidly if you have access to enough authoritatively identified specimens.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

For everyone missing my talk on image classification at PBEntSoc on Tuesday, here are the main points: 1. We need taxonomists to train AI models based on museum specimens. The iNat AI is amazing but will never get to the specificity we need. #AI #insectIDs #Ichneumonidae #taxonomy #insects #wasps

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

I feel your pain. The pic is 1 out of 3 pages of ME from one of my papers. Preparing ME sections as a text block is probably the most tedious and I would argue unnecessary parts of a taxonomic paper. Why are we still putting this tabular information in paragraph form?

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I'm happy to announce we're shipping out our first orders of Claridge Traps light sheets! If you're tired of stringing a sheet between two trees, why not support a fellow entomologist and his growing insect trap business? Use the discount code "Bluesky" to get 10% off your order for the next month.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

The filterable gallery is essentially a vastly more intuitive version of a matrix-based approach like a Lucid key. It works based on #JavaScript, #CSS, #HTML, and a simple data sheet filled out with info on color, distribution, morphology, biology, taxonomy, etc.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

When available, more images can be seen by clicking on a species of interest.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

There is a lot of functionality on IoNA (ichsofna.org) that most people aren´t aware of. Here are a couple of videos explaining what can be done with the filterable galleries. #Ichneumonidae #Ichneumoninae #biodiversity #JavaScript #insect #wasp #parasitoid

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Chauvinia ganota should just be Chauvinia ganota Claridge but GBIF lists all the authors on the paper instead. I guess this is a case where being able to pull data from Davide's (@ddpichenumonidae.bsky.social) growing World Ichneumonidae Database would come in handy.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Does anyone have experience with the GBIF API? I've been exploring using it to enhance Ichneumonids of North America (ichsofna.org), including populating point occurrence maps and image galleries. Any suggestions for other uses?

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

My near-term interests are Phaeogenini genera like Dicaelotus and Tycherus. They are small ichneumonines that attack microleps like tortricids. I think there are a good number of undescribed species from your area. They range from brownish-red with some markings to all black.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

A beautiful undescribed Melanichneumon species from southern #Utah collected by VFITs in a gamble oak thicket. Ichneumonids are still massively undercollected in southern Utah. More undescribed species can be seen at ichsofna.org #ichneumonidae #newspecies #undescribedspecies #trackerwasp

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Here are a few of the tens of undescribed Ophion species from the western US. More can be seen on my draft guide page for North American Ophioninae: ichsofna.org/Ophioninae/g...

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Cratichneumon igniferous is another striking Arizonan species. Here's the etymology from my coauthor Ryan Helcoski: "Derived from the Latin ignis (fire) and ferre (to bear) in reference to the coloration ... that is reminiscent of the coals of a campfire flaring up and burning."

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Cratichneumon permagnus (= very great Cratichneumon). A new species described by Claridge et al. last fall along with 10 other Cratichneumon species from Arizona. #ichneumonidae #ichneumoninae #trackerwasp #Arizona #newspecies

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Eparces australis (Ichneumoninae) - described by myself and Davide dal Pos (@ddpichenumonidae.bsky.social) last year. No one has yet to figure out the host of any Eparces species, but they're probably some micro moth feeding on a semi-aquatic plant. Someone should try and rear it out. #Ichneumonidae

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

In honor of #BlueBugs and #BlueMonday here is an undescribed species of Coelichneumon from Costa Rica and several blue North American ichneumonines on ichsofna.org #Ichneumonidae #Ichneumoninae

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

No need for high-quality photos—just snap a quick shot through a dissecting scope eyepiece with your phone. With some concerted effort from insect taxonomists, identifying pinned insects could become a trivial task. Feel free to reach out for more details!

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Artificial intelligence has been almost criminally underused by insect taxonomists. See my ichneumon subfamily classifier for an example of how it can be done easily with museum specimens. #entomology #ichneumonidae #artificialintelligence #taxonomy

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Just for fun, here is one of the many undescribed species already represented in the gallery. It's a beautifully patterned male Ctenichneumon from Texas. The female is unknown.

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Brandon Claridge @ichsofna.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Ichneumonids have a bad reputation for being hard to ID because there are so many species. I'm trying to change that so on ichsofna.org I've got an image classification model to identify subfamilies and a filterable gallery for Ichneumoninae species (shown below).

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