iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Wonderful article. I love your initial description of the kiwi as something cobbled together from other creatures’ parts!

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Adrian Smith @dradriansmith.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Orthopterans and flea beetles in a new Ant Lab video, out today! youtu.be/Wr8mGF4P188

youtu.be

How Cricket, Grasshopper…& Beetle!? Jumps Work

YouTube video by Ant Lab

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Marshal Hedin @mhedin.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

cue AC/DC, Back in Black .... Oskoron spinosus, from the CA Sierra Nevada foothills named for Oskoron, King of Egypt (reigned 760-740 bce)

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Jim 🇺🇦 @pom137.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Sitting on a car, a very sporty looking metallic wood-boring beetle. My guess is Chrysobothris chrysoela. #bugsky #inverts #insects #trees #forests #ECK #nature #macro #beetles

A metallic black beetle with green-yellow spots on wings and green coloration on head around eyes. Silvery-grey background

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Also, these look like male eastern carpenter bees to me - males have white faces, females have dark faces.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Male bees of many species often rest in flowers or cling onto plant stems at night or in cool weather, and sometimes in groups. I’d guess that’s what this is. 🐝💤

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Still frame from the next “Dune” movie

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Picked up this bottle of Australian wine to bring to dinner tomorrow (‘22 Adelina shiraz). Was my purchase influenced by the label? Who’s to say? 🦋🍷

A photo of part of a wine bottle label, featuring artwork of a realistic butterfly against a pure yellow background above and a moth (like a Cecropia silk moth) against a pure green background below.

A photo of part of a wine bottle label, featuring artwork of two realistic butterflies. The black, white and yellow butterfly above is against a pure green background, and the black and yellow butterfly below is against a multicolored swirled background.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Friday #FlyDay - Here's a pretty little fly I saw for a brief moment last month in Montana. You could get lost in those fly eyes... 🐙🌿 #BugSky 👁️

A macro photo, front three-quarter angle, of an orange fly perched on a rock covered in white and black lichen. The fly's eyes are quite beautiful, orange with a reddish-pink horizontal stripe through them.

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

True Facts about Parasitoid Wasps (by @zefrank.bsky.social) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANyJ...

youtube.com

True Facts: Parasitoid Wasps

YouTube video by Ze Frank

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. The kid trapped inside the drum freaked me out.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Ha, in our yard it’s the California towhees

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

How may I help you?

Macro photo of a very plump apple green caterpillar facing us head on, reared-up, its six forelegs clasped expectantly.

It is a late instar larva of Antheraea polyphemus.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

When you eat two of the house sitter’s socks, then have to have them removed by endoscopy (thankfully not surgery), you will lose a bit of fur from the IV. Will you learn from this experience not to eat socks in the future, given that you are a highly intelligent standard poodle? No. You will not.

A black standard poodle asleep on his side on a cream colored carpet. There is a ring of shaved fur on his right front leg because he had an IV because he ate two socks and the vet had to remove them by endoscopy.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I have five of them and one of them does that same thing!

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Today is the day to commiserate with Charles Darwin, on the 161st anniversary of his confessing to Charles Lyell that he felt "...very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everyone & everything." Here's more of the back story on Darwin writing about this not-so-good day. www.npr.org/sections/kru...

npr.org

Charles Darwin And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Geniuses have it easy, right? They wake up and out pops the brilliance. Well, not really. And not if that genius is Charles Darwin, who's got lots to do and absolutely no desire to do it. Those days (...

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’m guilty of being cautious - admittedly and perhaps unnecessarily so - about giving specific location details about beautiful places. But ask away on any of them and I will tell you.

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center @anzaborrego.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

A thunderstorm developed over the Salton Sea just about an hour ago. Cloud-based lightning can be seen as it got darker (Video: Sicco Rood).

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A few phone pics of various chunks of public land for National Public Lands Day. Keep Public Lands public. #publiclands #thislandisyourland

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Bald Eagle with fresh-caught cutthroat trout, plus a side salad. Yellowstone National Park earlier this month. #birds 🌿📷🦉🦅

A photo of a bald eagle, wings spread, looking down at the cutthroat trout it has just caught. There is a clump of water plant in the bird's talons along with the fish. The background is yellow grass and a bit of blue river at the bottom of the frame.

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Army ants (Eciton mexicanum) are specialist predators of other ants. Here, a group of workers take down a Neoponera huntress ant in an Ecuadorian cloud forest.

Macro photo of four dark red ants with orange casters surrounding a larger metallic blue/black ant on a mossy rock.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

You’re welcome, and I agree. I liked how gently it examined the dead one before moving on.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Noticed a dead Eleodes sp. darkling beetle (sometimes called stink bugs/beetles) in the Mojave Desert a month ago, saw another one was walking toward it and decided to record the encounter: "Larry? You okay? You sleeping? Yeah, probably asleep. Sorry. I'll see you later. Maybe. Okay bye." #BugSky 🐙🌿

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I mean, probably, but it would take several hundred to make a single dipping portion of shrimp cocktail 🍤

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

My wife texted me the link while I was in Yellowstone last week and I literally pulled over and signed up while parked next to the road at Mammoth Lodge

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This is a jumping bristletail, part of a wingless group of insects with roots going back to before the dinosaurs. They look a little like hump-backed silverfish, and often have beautiful, metallic, moth-like scales. I love these googly-eyed little land shrimps. (Montana) 🐙📷 #BugSky 🕶️

A macro photo looking into the face of a wingless insect called a jumping bristletail. It is cryptically colored and matches the black and tan, lichen-covered rock it's on. It has large, gold, forward-facing compound eyes, which kinda look like googly eyes or maybe a reflective pair of Ray-bans.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A small male bee (males have longer antennae), about a quarter of an inch long, hanging out under a flower. Beartooth Mountains, Montana. 🌿🐙📷 #BugSky

A macro photo looking up at the underside of a purple daisy-like flower with a yellow center. The green base of the flower is in the lower right, and in the upper left a small dark bee with long antennae is roosting upside down, clinging to the translucent purple petals.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I am itching to break out last year’s Day of the Dead Butterfly Vans 🦋💀

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Yep, you can see the front of the lens and the white curve of the flash diffuser resting on it. 👀

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

This jumping spider looks like it's wearing a warm sweater, which isn't a bad idea since it was at over seven thousand feet up in the mountains in Montana, where things can get pretty chilly. (Phidippus sp., I think). 🌿🐙🕷️ #BugSky

A macro photo of a rather hirsute jumping spider between some yellowish tan pebbles. The spider is facing forward but directing its gaze slightly down and right. It is overall black but covered in yellow flat hairs plus many white bristly hairs on its legs and black bristles on its head. Its palps are reddish and also quite fuzzy.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Went hiking in Montana's Beartooth Mountains and was very excited by this wolf sighting 🐺🕷️🌿🐙📷

A macro photo at ground level, looking into the face of dark brown, almost black wolf spider. One pair of forward-facing eyes is much larger than the other visible eyes. The background is out of focus mottled pale rock.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Killdeer at Mammoth Hot Springs terraces, Yellowstone National Park. 📷🦉

A photo of a wall of yellow, soft-edged, terraced and many-layered minerals at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, with a small bird, a killdeer, in the lower left.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Boop (Hot-spring-killed tree, Artists Paint Pots trail, Yellowstone National Park) 📷

A black and white photo of a dead, twisted tree branch against a sunny, sparkling water background. The end of the branch on the upper left looks like and extended arm with a finger pointing at something.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Thanks, Marshal! I do have a shot of one calling, although not from this most recent batch.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Pika, Beartooth Plateau at close to 11,000 feet, Wyoming. These small fluffballs are not rodents, but related to rabbits. They don't hibernate, despite the brutal winters at high elevation. They gather plants in the brief alpine summer then live on the dried "hay" all winter. Also, they are cute. 🌿📷

A photo of a cute hamster-esque looking animal (but actually related to rabbits, not rodents) called a pika, sitting atop lichen covered boulders.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Ovoid animal in Yellowstone National Park

A photo of the back of a very fluffy chunky hefty hound squirrel that is essentially a fluffy ovoid, on the gravelly ground.

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Season of Scaryanne Denton 🧡🎃 @mariannedenton.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

These two pictures are of the same thing. Just arranged differently. Tiny Sweat Bee (Halictidae) on Rocky Mountain Beeplant (Cleomella serrulata).🌿 M16 in the constellation Serpens. 🔭

Small native bee collecting green pollen on a purple wildflower with long stamens that end with green pollen

The Eagle Nebula in a dark sky through an Astrophotography telescope.

From Wikipedia: The Eagle Nebula is a diffuse emission nebula, or H II region, which is catalogued as IC 4703. This region of active current star formation is about 5700 light-years distant. A spire of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula in the northeastern part is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers long.

The cluster associated with the nebula has approximately 8100 stars, which are mostly concentrated in a gap in the molecular cloud to the north-west of the Pillars. The cluster's age has been estimated to be 1–2 million years.

The descriptive names reflect impressions of the shape of the central pillar rising from the southeast into the central luminous area.

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Reposted by Tom Astle

Patrick @watchinthesky.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I hear it’s #NationalHummingbirdDay! They have flight feather structures that can play games with sunlight in the right conditions. #birds #RainbowWings

From a year ago, an image of a hummingbird in flight with a rainbow of colors seen in one wing that is backlit by the late afternoon sun.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Happy #NationalWildlifeDay - here is your reminder that wildlife can be small, like these ambush bugs making more ambush bugs in goldenrod. Single shot at 3X; these tiny armored predators are about the size of a lentil. They have amazingly textured exoskeletons. Phymata sp., Montana 🌿🐙📷 #BugSky

A macro photo, side view, of a mating pair of orange, yellow, and brown ambush bugs in bright yellow goldenrod flowers, against a muted olive green background. The male bug is more brown, the female more yellow. They have heavily armored exoskeletons and mantis-like grasping forelegs.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Photo of the Milky Way on a two year old iphone. I mean, not bad! Not pictured: in only 20 minutes, I saw at least a dozen Nazi bottle rockets/Starlink satellites streak across the view. I don't know how it's even possible to take long exposure night sky images any more.

An iphone photo of the night sky, with the Milky Way visible on the left. I mean, it's not the Hubble, but it's not bad for a phone pic.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Sticker is by the wonderful artist Matt Adrian, aka The Mincing Mockingbird, @mattadrianart.bsky.social

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