Fingers holding a pinned mosquito

Who wants a job like mine? If so you may be in luck! 🥳

Virginia Tech is hiring an Insect Identification Laboratory Manager: careers.pageuppeople.com/968/cw/en-us... Follow the link for info and to apply.

If only !

I have a really great resume and lots of lab experience for being freshly graduated and I can’t even get an interview 😭💔 this job market is KILLING ME

Investigation into the Microbiome of Blow Fly Eggs Using MicroSEQTM ID There is little published research characterizing the microbiome associated with blow fly eggs and how they may affect the colonization behaviors of certain blow fly species. Once deposited, blow fly eggs are rapidly introduced to a diverse range of microorganisms, which can vary depending on the species of blow fly, the environment, and the decomposition stage of the substrate (Junqueira et al., 2017). Since blow flies are among the first insects to colonize decomposing remains, the microbial communities present on their eggs could serve as key indicators of the decomposition stage at the time of egg-laying, thus providing a potential new method for refining PMI, or post-mortem interval, estimations (Joseph et al., 2011). In this study, the egg microbiomes of three blow fly species were studied: Lucilia sericata (Meigen), Phormia regina (Meigen), and Calliphora vicina (Robineau-Desvoidy). For each species, eggs were collected and swabbed within one hour of deposition and plated onto both tryptic soy agar (TSA) and 5% sheep’s blood agar. From these plates, individual microbial strains were identified and plated on TSA or blood agar to create isolate colonies to be used for species-level identifications using the MicroSEQTM ID workflow. MicroSEQTM ID provided an easy, efficient, and reliable sequencing method for identifying egg-associated microbes, and this study demonstrated that 5% sheep’s blood agar was useful in identifying hemolytic-specific microbial strains. The specific microorganisms identified in this experiment demonstrated that the microbiome associated with blow fly eggs is highly complex and diverse, and has many consistent and species-specific aspects between blow flies. This study highlighted the relevance of using MicroSEQTM ID and blood agar in a variety of contexts beyond forensic entomology and how the microbiomes of blow fly eggs could play a role in colonization behavior.

A poster I worked on got published! I miss the flies every dayyy😭🩷🪰

academicworks.cuny.edu/oaa_ur/2/

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🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Lately

Happy 36th to me :) 🎂🎈

Aaaa thank you I’m so happy!

🐜🩷

Will wear it and think of you from now on 🥹🩷

I paid for a day pass at bathhouse there’s no way I will ever have a pool on the roof of my building I am poor as fuck

Big bruise and a big rooftop pool ⛅️

I DID IT 😭🎓

🥰

For now :)

My time at the American Museum of Natural History has been one of the greatest achievements of my life and it is bittersweet because I am just not that into museum lab work.

In July I’ll be doing outside work with spiders and maybe I will love that? Field mouse 🐁 or lab rat 🐀?

Casual work finds 🦑🦂🐜🕷️🐙

Lately 🦂🧬

Knife through the heart

Nosferachoo

Biggest smile I’ve ever had

I almost cried seeing the HUGE centipede they have I’m SO EXCITED

Official arachnid princess 🕷️🎀🦂

the job search is going well

a black arachnid with a pear-shaped body speckled with cream dots, two larger patches near the eyes

a dark brown arachnid, body densely covered in yellow dots except for two blotches near the dorsal spikes and a triangular notch by the head

a brown arachnid with a rib cage-like yellow pattern on its back

a rusty brown arachnid with many small flecks of yellow that fade like a gradient

I think some of the most beautiful arachnids I saw in Costa Rica at the start of last year were the cosmetid harvestmen: large, colorful, and each species uniquely patterned

I would die for him

This was my first semester not taking 12-15 credits but the internship was about 18 hours per week so I still feel insane