iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Such a cool pattern on the underside of this Delias specimen from Papua New Guinea

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

We have brought back the genus name Polenta and it is now iNat official. You're welcome!

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Cherry dagger moth at Powdermill Nature Reserve last night

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Absolutely stunning jungle jade swallowtails (Papilio karna) in our collection. Those green specks are individual metallic green scales.

Drawer of Papilio specimens arranged neatly in rows. Multiple species. All black with their own splashes of green and blue.

Close up of Papilio karna showing hindering with turquoise patch and purple–red bordered black eyespots on a black background strewn with individual metallic green scales.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Literally already been done for millions of years

Beginning of wikipedia article on the fecal shield that some leaf beetles wear.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

And with that, the 74th Annual Meeting of the Lepidopterists' Society comes to a close. See y'all next year in Alberta!

View of the Bucco Billboard at PNC Park from the top row of the left-field stands which reads "BEST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY EVER." I stand in the foreground with arms raised, facing the camera.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

A North-American native owlet moth is a better pollinator than (non-native) honeybees. Get REKT, Apis mellifera! Cool talk by Christopher Cosma of the Conservation Biology Institute during our Lepidopterists' Society meeting.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

The third day of the 74th Annual Meeting of the Lepidopterists' Society begins shortly. Steely McLep welcomes the attendees.

Carnegie Library Lecture Hall with a man standing on stage at the podium. An illustration of a yellow and black caterpillar in a hardhat carrying an I beam (Steely McLep) projected onto the screen above the stage.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Getting everything set for the Lepidopterists' Society meeting later this week

A still of the opening sequence of Silence of the Lamb's with "Jodie Foster" on screen beyond an expanse of dark and empty chairs in the Carnegie Museum of Art theater.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Or hypnotize you and steal your soul

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I just planted some last fall. Got my first flowers growing :)

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Mugs for our conference came 🥰 Phenomenal artwork by @americanbeetles.bsky.social

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Always a dream to spend time in Anza-Borrego

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Back in the lab grinding up moth legs for DNA. Lots of interesting moths in this batch, including maybe a new genus I got in Jalisco, Mexico this past October.

A wet lab bench with equipment on it. Shelving above the bench houses (mostly) supplies for pipetting.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Spreading moths for the people✊ in the museum's Visible Lab in the new Bringing the World to Pittsburgh exhibit

A variety of items spread on a table. Boxes with pinned moths, spreading blocks, and a digital microscope with screen so the people can see how I'm spreading specimens.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Absolutely exquisite handwriting in this hundred year old letter in our Hugo Kahl archive. He worked at our museum roughly from 1920–1940. Always love to see his handwriting here and there around the collection.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Found this old map of Riverview Park in our collection for some reason. Not sure when it was made. It says "Paul for historical facts" but Paul don't work here no more! Anybody have any ideas of when this could be from?

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

There's something very wrong with my stream

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Mating eastern tailed-blues in the garden today

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

My showcase garden plot of goldenrod, gayfeather, American asters, wingstem, dogbane, milkweed, and deer tongue grass

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Hahaha Oneil Cruz is eating an Uncrustable after hitting an enormous home run

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Polished an old brass (and copper?) lamp we had in our section's storage. Made by Almond Man. Co. in Brooklyn, NY with patent number on it from 1898. Being from that era, it may have been a lamp of the museum's and section's first director, William Jacob Holland (pictured behind the polished lamp).

Close up of lamp neck showing polishing in process.

Close up of lamp base with polishing liquid applied but before polishing.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Ok everyone post with how they use their pet in their research. I use my dog's whiskers for the very delicate process of removing scales while dissecting moth genitalia. Here are the whiskers glued to wooden dowels, and a file photo of my dog Tule.

Three wooden dowels with whisker sections glued to their ends.

Close up of my dog's smiling face with sun shining from above. A brick wall in the background.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

We had a microscope vendor come by the museum to demo a new scope. So I gave him a toughy to photo: a species of sparkling archaic sun moth (Eriocraniidae) found in Pittsburgh. He got a great pic, but oriented it upside down ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Right side up here, with upside down scale bar in the top left

A tiny moth on a pin with wings spread to the side. Both forewings and hindwings are somewhat ovate. Hindwings brown with muted iridescent sheen. Forewings a magnificent mixture of gold and purple scales.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Mummy wasp, with mummy wasp cocoon (bottom left) and mummified caterpillar the wasp larva developed in (bottom right) from my recent trip to California. bugguide.net/node/view/23...

An insect pin with small wasp (~1 cm long and mostly black), with whitish cocoon and brownish mummified caterpillar below it on the same pin.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Looks like they are Acrididae eggs!

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

😄😭😄😭😄😭😄😭

The current Shouts and Murmurs from the New Yorker titled "Updated U.S. Customs and Border Protection Questionnaire."

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Looking for caterpillars in a field of Bigelow's tickseed in Nine Mile Canyon outside Inyokern, CA today

Me very far away on a golden hillside with a white caterpillar beat sheet held camera side and mostly obscuring me. Hills rise behind me.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

A longhorn bee sleeping in a wild onion flower today in the Santa Lucia Mountains.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Looking for caterpillars on mistletoe in the Santa Lucia Mountains in California today.

Me up in an oak tree in an oak woodland landscape. I'm holding a white square sheet under the mistletoe and whacking the mistletoe with a stick to see what caterpillars fall off.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Any entomologists know what these eggs? are that I found in soil in Pittsburgh?

Many of the structures described in the second photo in a chunk of soil.

Tan-brown ovate insect structure with more or less regular geometric patterning to its cuticle

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

How do you say "gofuckyaself" in Hebrew

Marco Rubio with a happy Passover message

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

1/2 This motherfucking idiot. First: we did not resurrect the dire wolf. Second: it is way harder to reestablish a lost species than protect an extent one. Third off: if you allow one species to go extinct, you sever countless ecological interactions which can cause cascading extinctions...

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Pinning up some forester moths I collected last year in Cabo region Baja California. This species has a population there and one in southwestern US and northern Mexico. Apparently doesn't occur in between but the DNA says they're the same species. VERY interesting.

Two moths on a spreading board with many pins holding various appendages in place to dry.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Pittsburgh early warning system for land slides. When the Sheetz bottle falls, the landslide has begun.

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Kevin Keegan @mothpotato.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Stand Up for Science Rally in Pittsburgh

Cathedral of Learning with crowd gathered on Schenley Plaza grass in foreground

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