bowelflies

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Happy Pollinator week to the Baltic Isopod, the first underwater pollinator discovered by science! Lab studies imply that their activities help pollinate seagrass and macroalgea. Is there anything isopods can't do?

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Butternut woollyworm sawfly larvae, Eriocampa juglandis, Tenthredinidae

Found primarily in eastern North America, Central America, and South America. Larvae secrete tendrils of a wax-like substance that covers their body and acts as a defense against predators and possibly against fungal or parasitoid infections. Adults, as with all sawflies, resemble wasps (no photos available).

Photos 1-2 by wanderingmogwai, 3-4 by ryanhodnett, 5-6 by kimberlietx, 7 (molt) by calopteryx, 8 by hwise01, 9 (gif) by c_marie, and 10 (for scale) by mjpapay

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#1842 - Fam. Eulophidae

A minute wasp attracted to a light trap in Samson, Perth, Western Australia.

Most likely a parasite of Torymid gall-forming wasps, according to Andras Szito at the AgDept, who identified it for me and only managed to do so because he’d received a gall-infested eucalypt to ID the same day. 

As he said “Microhymenoptera is a separate world. Mr Boucek, the author of the Australian Chalcidoidea book, once stated; after 30 years of studying them you can say that you started to get to know them. Who has 30 years to study them? I remember, there are genera with well over one thousand species in them. Since most parasitic wasps are highly host specific, I am sure their species number well exceeds the beetle species number.”

Eulophids are tiny, and difficult to study, but most of the 4300+ species are parasitoids of other arthropods. At least one is a parasitoid of aquatic beetles. Many are host-specific, but Aprostocetus hagenowii which is used as a biocontrol of cockroaches in the US, also targets bark beetles and hatchet wasps - the latter themselves parasitoids of cockroach eggs. 

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Brother Ignatz trying to get out of dish duty by pretending to be a stand of reeds. again.

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🪱🪱🪱 HAPPY MOL DAY 🪱🪱🪱

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THEY FOUND THE WHITE WITCH CATERPILLAR! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

For context: the white witch is one of the contenders for the largest moth in the world (biggest *wingspan*--loses to the atlas in terms of wing surface area, and loses to the regal for weight). It has a huge range, and the adult is fairly common.

But no one had ever seen a caterpillar. At all. There were only guesses as to what it might look like and what it ate. until this year. These are some of the first images ever taken of it!!

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We need to do what we can to protect the Internet Archive. Here is a petition that you can sign.

This petition alone might not be enough, but everything we can throw at this counts.

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Underground is a weird place

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Portable TVs with personalities.

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27-7-25

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Aleksandra Czudzak, Rats

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Insectember day 2: Hammatostylus sp. Common name: Long snouted weevil

I should've made its snout even longer...

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Wynstan, the student wizard, and his brother Wally, having a magical picnic in the clouds! Wynstan has conjured a wonderful spread of food for them to eat and Wally is having the time of his life, being waited on by his brother. well, it is his birthday!

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Day 2 - Primary Consumer (of Goldnestlings, among other things)

The deceitful hornback (Tubercauda decepta) is a heavy bodied hornback that feeds opportunistically on the leaves of many different species of low-growing herb. The deceitful hornback, unlike other members of it's clade, is not venomous, instead using it's 'stinger' to lay eggs in the tissues of woody plants.

[bowelflies]

You might've talked about it already somewhere but what's your absolute favorite bug(s)?

hardest and most common question I've ever gotten as an entomologist. it's always hard. there's just so many cool bugs out there and I'm always learning about some batshit crazy stuff that bugs are doing. I can narrow it down to a favorite order (diptera) and even within that it's hard!!

Particularly a big fan of pipunculidae (big headed flies) because. well. they look like that. I promise this is a real image

also a huge fan of tabanidae (horse and deer flies) especially the really big horseflies. I just think they're very handsome critters

I made a costume of Tabanus atratus a few years ago

most recently I found out about Pantophthalmidae (timber flies) from looking at some collection specimens and I think my jaw dropped at how large they were. I need to meet one in real life

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A short comic I pulled together for an artist battle on enterVOID, about giving in to the call of the ocean <3