Ben Rosen
LightNews LightNews
banner
benrosen2000.bsky.social
Ben Rosen
@benrosen2000.bsky.social
35 followers 53 following 3 posts
ORISE fellow USDA Systematic Entomology Lab. Currently studying Coccomorpha.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Ben Rosen
inaturalist.bsky.social
Consider your sign to stop and stare at logs a little more often because just LOOK at this glorious velvet mite! (Third photo is where it was spotted.)

📷 jeremyhegge on iNaturalist
📍 Australia
🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
#ObservationOfTheDay
A fuzzy, bright red mite crawls along a log. A fuzzy, bright red mite crawls along a log. There is a fallen log surrounded by leaf litter and tall, slender trees.
January 6, 2026 at 3:01 PM
benrosen2000.bsky.social
My parents tell me that I was absolutely enthralled with this exhibit as a toddler to the point where I needed to be carried away after 30 minutes.

I certainly think this specific exhibit is the reason I now work in natural history museums!
amnh.org American Museum of Natural History @amnh.org · 14d
Dive into today’s Exhibit of the Day: the Museum’s Sperm Whale & Giant Squid Diorama! The winner of this encounter? Likely the sperm whale. Scientists have discovered parts of squid inside sperm whales’ stomachs & scar marks on whales that match the suckers of a giant squid.
A photo of the Museum’s Sperm Whale and Giant Squid Diorama. The whale has its jaws closed around a giant squid. The squid is bright red and its long tentacles are touching the whale’s face.
December 29, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by Ben Rosen
apsciencebylyn.bsky.social
These little scale boys really don't need my help in finding a mate, but the way the little guy would climb onto my finger instantly and hop off when I put him next to a female*... 🥹
I love the yearly emergence of these silly Neosteingelia texana scale insects on my maple trees. ♥️🧪
Silly bright red mayfly-esque scale insect boy with gossamer wings and long waxy fiber-optic tail filaments, atop a bright red female who looks like a puffy sleeping bag with tiny legs disappearing into a crevice of maple bark The silly boy on another female, long tail filaments looking like a rooster tail
November 30, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Reposted by Ben Rosen
mossworm.bsky.social
thrips
flat color cartoon drawings of several thrips, small insects which may have four wings or none. clockwise from top left: a thrips with very complex fringed wings, a thrips with large crab claws, two drawings of thrips with no wings and a dark brown front end and tan back, and a long and thin black thrips with red legs photos of the real animals that are drawn in the previous image; Arachisothrips has large and complex wings, Stephanothrips is wingless with a dark brown head and thorax, Idolothrips is very long and thin, and Carcinothrips has very large crab claw-like forearms
December 2, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Reposted by Ben Rosen
biodiversitypix.bsky.social
🌷 Trees as good citizens.
Washington, D.C.American Tree Association[1922]

[Source]
Illustration of maple tree leaves and branches showing various scale insects and infestations. The image includes large green leaves with white powdery scale fungus, brown branches densely covered with round, dark brown scale insect galls, small insect larvae, and a winged insect. Several numbered close-ups highlight different life stages of the scale insects on bark and leaf surfaces. The drawing is detailed and botanical in style, emphasizing the impact of scale insects on the tree's health. The image is titled "Maple and Other Scale Insects," dated 1905 by L.H. Joutel.
August 24, 2025 at 4:23 AM
benrosen2000.bsky.social
Lesser known than his federal counterparts, Asa Fitch was appointed by New York as the first state entomologist in 1854.

L.O. Howard noted his work to be “… as finished and as valuable as anything that [C.V.] Riley ever wrote…” (Howard 1930).

An honor to work with a book once owned by Dr. Fitch.
An inscription reading “Asa Fitch, Salem New York, May 1, 1855. Received from Paris”. Found on the title page of Insecta Lapponica (Zetterstedt, J. W. 1840). This book is part of a larger collection bequeathed by Frederick C. Hottes to the USDA Systematic Entomology Lab. The first page of Asa Fitch’s biography from American Entomologists (A. Mallis 1971).
August 6, 2025 at 9:38 PM