iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Nathan Harness

Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I would like to point out that the local people in Bolivia were already familiar with the new cat species, traditionally calling it "Tilcayo", a name honored by the scientists who carried it over into the formal scientific name Leopardus tilcayo.

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

A planthopper! This makes me jealous. Here’s one I found on the equator

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Look. At. This. (!). A fungus spore landed on this weevil. Grew inside and caused it to climb to the top of this plant- while the fungus killed it. Consumed its body. Used that energy to shoot up a red fruiting body to release more spores. To zombify more weevils. A mind controlling killer fungus.

A dead weevil with a fungus fruiting body growing out of it

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Chelsea Cook @phdbee.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

We (me and @njdowdy.bsky.social) are hiring a PhD student! Come work with us! We seek a PhD student to investigate the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera within a comparative evolutionary framework... Job closes this week! Apply ASAP! njdowdy.gitlab.io/balogh-fello...

njdowdy.gitlab.io

Kenneth F. Balogh Graduate Student Fellowship

A PhD position investigating the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera, co-advised by Dr. Nicolas J. Dowdy (Milwaukee Public Museum) and Dr. Chelsea Cook (Marquette University). Apply by June ...

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Oh, a land nudibranch

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

An orb weaver spider and her egg sack in the lowland Amazon. Pretty stellar colors 🕷️🕸️

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Just a murderous fungus having taken over a wasp and compelled it to die in a place advantageous to finding more victims. With its tiny spores floating off through the air in hopes of just one landing on an exoskeleton.. nothing in the rainforest wants anything to do with this little scene here…

A wasp with the threads of a fungal fruiting body growing out of it

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Hello from a Frog Hopper and a spittle nest I found along the Napo River in Ecuador. All that foam is how the nymph frog hopper keeps itself safe from harm. I love this photo because if you look at the largest bubble you can see the nymph living in there(!!). Tiny little worlds everywhere

A black and yellow insect next to a bundle of foam

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

..I mean since you asked.. 😅 Here’s a baby katydid mimicking a wasp— he will wave those antennae around and move on the leaf JUST like a little wasp -&- next to him is a fly also mimicking a wasp- but pretending her ARMS are antennae. You can see her waving them around desperately trying to fool me

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

I saw these monkeys all in one day, in the lowland Amazon. I almost fell out of the canoe seeing the endangered spider monkey. An incredible forest 🧪🐒🪾

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Can you find him? I promise he’s in this photo

A photo of leaf litter on the ground. The katydid is here so where

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Hello there. Here’s the 1st wonder of the world- a peacock katydid displaying for us here in the Amazon 😍

Bright colors on the back wing of a katydid splayed out

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Caterpillar? Don’t want to be eaten as a snack? Here’s a popular strategy I found this week in the cloud forest.

A green caterpillar with false eyes on its back

A caterpillar with false eyes on its head

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

A view into the Amazon from Sumaco Volcano. So many little worlds playing out in the forest below. An entire universe of beetles and monkeys and birds and humans. You could spend all your life learning about the ants in one of those little trees down there. Overwhelmingly beautiful.

A view into the foothills of the mountains that expands into the Amazon basin

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

I found this rove beetle friend on the rainforest floor. They are so so fast, you can imaging me chasing it around with my camera just rolling around in the leaf litter. Just unbelievable colors. In person the rainbow iridescence is stunning. It’s hard to say much here beyond just wow.

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Some vertebrates I found in Southeast Alaska. (It was really great to finally see bubble netting)

A humpback whale fluke in front of a mountain

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

The entrance to Fords Terror. A fjord just off of Endicott Arm in Alaska. You can only get into (or out of) this fjord at high slack tide- for about twenty minutes a day. More photos of the stunning effects of glaciers on mountain rock soon to come

A colorful penensula of trees with a long dramatic waterfall in the background

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

A humpback whale checking out her above water surroundings (Spyhopping)

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

What spectacular shades of blue. An iceberg just off the face of the Dawes Glacier in Southeast Alaska. That little spec in front of the upper left part of the berg is an Arctic Tern, absolutely dwarfed by this chunk of mountain-carving-ice.

A very blue and very huge iceberg in front of a solid rock wall

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

🎶horror music🎶 Another cordyceps victim. This particular species of fungus is targeting a different insect. It’s taken over the bugs body and moved it up a tree, where it killed it and consumed it (leaving behind the exoskeleton) using the energy to grow those orange mushrooms and spread more spores

A bug infected by cordyceps fungus, which has its fruiting bodies growing out of it

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

There have been THREE velvet worm (Onychophora) posts in the last day or so, requiring a megathread. I'll add one of their coolest fossils first, from when they were exclusively marine, drawn by @franzanth.bsky.social for @arthropoda-curator.bsky.social (see next 3 skeets in thread...) 🧪

Franz Anthony's drawing of Facivermis, a strange stem group onychophoran which has elongate, feathery anterior appendages for filter feeding. It is in a tube embedded in the sediment and has a blobby bit at the posterior end. A second individual is shown hiding in its tube, with only the feathery appendages visible

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I love this! I guess I’ll have to visit NZ again soon

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Right??? I think this just CONSTANTLY

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Oh and they also hunt by shooting glue out of those little nubs on their face 😃🪱

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

!. Look at this astonishing animal. My velvet worm friend lives on moss in the rainforest. He is ANCIENT. WAY older than dinosaurs, lobopods like him even make an appearance in the Cambrian- when multicellular life became trendy. You can find him today on a tree at Wildsumaco, in Ecuador :)