@caeculus.bsky.social
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Ken Schneider; pathologist and California-based naturalist and microscopist on a mission to document the diversity of tiny and/or obscure invertebrates and cryptogams (lichens, mosses) living in western North America.
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Reposted
Welcome Miridae (and Reduviidae) to TaxonWorks! Comprehensive plant (and assassin) bug nomenclature with >44k names, distribution and host records are now imported. Christiane Weirauch, R. Toby Schuh and
Michael Schwartz lead the evolution of this decades long effort on these important #insects.
Screenshot of the "Browse nomenclature" task in TaxonWorks loaded on the taxonomic name Miridae. Screenshot of the Biological Associations Graph interface witha  couple plant-bug relationships selected.
Reposted
Calling all those interested in bees, wasps, sawflies, and ants!!! The International Society of Hymenopterists (@hymenopterists.bsky.social) is putting out a survey to both non-members and members to find out what you would like to see from the society: forms.office.com/e/ekULRH4Tdt

Please share! 🫶
Microsoft Forms
forms.office.com
OK, I love this song, but there is some sketchy geography in the lyrics that always catches my ear - maybe Kim Wilde hadn't spent much time in the US, because "East California" really isn't a thing... :)

"New York to East California
There's a new wave coming, I warn ya"

youtu.be/80TfG7C9azA?...
Kim Wilde - Kids in America (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by Kim Wilde
youtu.be
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🔬🧬🍄 @science.org Distribution of haploid chromosomes into separate nuclei in two pathogenic fungi | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@ubcbotany.bsky.social
#fungi #fungisky #mycology #genetics #chromosome #nucleus #DNA #evolution #genome #biodiversity
One more beauty for #flyweek : a bee fly I photographed in the Mojave Desert a couple of years ago which was kindly identified as Poecilanthrax californicus by York Niu.
Posting this rather colorful and snazzy-looking gall midge (Cecidomyiidae) I found in the Mojave Desert recently for #flyweek !
Reposted
A surprising amount of flies migrate! Fascinating stuff for fly lovers everywhere. 🪰💕
It's published!
The largest research work I've ever undertaken:

Lords of the flies: dipteran migrants are diverse, abundant & ecologically important

Published in Biological Reviews: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Thanks so much to co-authors @koralwotton.bsky.social & Myles Menz
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Screenshot from the cover page of the paper A map of the world showing fly migration study locations and estimated routes A close up photo of Eristalinus taeniops the stripey eyed hoverfly on a yellow flower in Cyprus A close up photo of the locust blowfly Stomorhina lunata on a rock. My favourite fly
A "long-horned" bee, possibly in the genus Eucera, found at Carrizo Plain NM in California today. #bees #pollinators
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Fossombronia from the Oakland hills. By far one of the best looking liverworts around. If springtails go to raves in the Oakland hills this is definitely the disco balls they dance beneath. #oakalnd #Fossombronia #liverworts #nature
2 of Fossombronia’s black sporophytes towering over the green foliage of the liverworts
Wtf! A bazillion species to choose from and they picked something from another family?
Phase contrast photomicrograph I took recently of a "fingerprint"-like pattern on the integument of a snout mite (Bdellidae) - a few hairs and hair sockets are visible. Apparently the precise pattern is useful for species identification.
Possibly my new favorite moss - Hedwigia (maybe H. detonsa) growing on the north side of a large rock outcrop in San Luis Obispo County, California.
I was really excited to be able to key out this tiny (395 micron) mesostig mite I found in coast redwood leaf litter all the way to species - not an easy task for most mites. Meet Cosmozercon setosus, slide mounted in Hoyer's medium. 🤩
Another tiny but fearsome predatory soil mite - Labidostomma sp. recovered from coast redwood leaf litter in northern California and mounted on a microscope slide. Check out the massive jaws (chelicerae) and the ornate ornamentation on the cuticle! :)
I found this mound of scat (?) on a log in northwestern CA recently and it appears to have become a food source for a cool-looking fungus in the family Phycomycetaceae? Not able to check with microscopy and have never seen this before, so corrections welcome if I've got this wrong! 😁
I photographed this Condylostylus sp. long-legged fly at a little city park in Fresno County, California earlier this year. It was only a few millimeters long. This family of predatory flies is diverse and can be photogenic because of their metallic sheen. #diptera #entomology #flies
#mites #acarology #soil #entomology
A slide mounted cunaxid mite, Cunaxa capreolus, collected from leaf litter in northern California recently. Only 0.5 mm long, but sure to strike fear into the hearts of the litter springtails it might have encountered.