A Cactus in Court • The Revelator Illegal trade in rare ornamental plants is booming — fueled by weak enforcement and a changing climate. But the theft of 1,000 cacti from the Chilean desert has led to a landmark court case in Italy.

A Cactus in Court

@romangoergen.bsky.social reports on the wild world of cactus trafficking -- today on @therevelator.org therevelator.org/a-cactus-in-...

Inspired by an old Flickr post code.flickr.net/author/flick... I built a tool to display a polygon around DNA barcode localities in the @boldsystems.bsky.social database. For example, here is Switzerland bold-view-bf2dfe9b0db3.herokuapp.com/geo.php?coun... as outlined by DNA barcodes.

A Brief Bit on BHL Battling a Barrage of Bots Over the past year, BHL has been forced to contend with the issue of AI Bot (short for robot) Crawlers and the effect of their unreasonable requests for BHL’s content. I say unreasonable because wh…

A Brief Bit on @biodivlibrary.bsky.social Battling a Barrage of Bots blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/04/batt... by @cajunjoel.bsky.social

Every species has a story—but without a name, that story may never be told. 🌍✨

On May 23, we celebrate #Taxonomy, the science that names, classifies, and describes life on #Earth.

We invite you to join us—discover how on our website 🔗
tettris.eu/trd/

A long narrow-bodied fly with a narrow wasp waist.

New preprint! Sure, you COULD name a fly Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides - but should you? How do naming choices affect the attention we pay to species? www.biorxiv.org/cont...

New work with Julia Mlynarek 🇨🇦 and Stefano Mammola!

(photo via zookeys.pensoft.net/...)

A fly with very long legs and a thin body. The posterior legs literally look like feathers. The eyes are bright red. The fly is black

A very badass fly with feathery legs. Genus Porphyrochroa

📢CALL FOR COLLABORATION📢

My PhD student Warre is looking for flies infected with #Laboulbeniales fungi. Especially Musca domestica!

If you have any, store in 96% ethanol or in the freezer, record on @inaturalist.bsky.social, and/or contact Warre.

#TeamLaboul #LFEE #LuminaQuaeruntur

TaxonWorks Together 2026.

We're now open to (free) registration.

TWT is a little different, we do our best to build in as much time to converse as to listen, fear not the relentless presentations, embrace #chat, bring your perspective (kindly).

Please join! #taxonomy

together.taxonworks.org

art002e009276 (April 6, 2026) - In this view of the Moon, the near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth), is visible at the top half of the Moon disk. It is identifiable by the dark splotches. These are ancient lava flows from a time early in the Moon’s history when it was volcanically active. The large crater that appears below the lava flows, dark in the center, is Orientale basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide crater that straddles the Moon’s near and far sides as is partly visible from Earth on the edge of the Moon. In this image, we have a full view of the crater. Everything below the crater is the far side, the hemisphere we don’t get to see from Earth because the Moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that it orbits round us. Credit: NASA

At this stage of the game, it is crystal clear that the internet, as a whole, was a huge mistake. But every now and then, we find incredible uses for it, like this photo gallery of Artemis II pictures.

www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2...

crop of New Zealand Bat Fly specimen mounted on insect pin

crop of New Zealand Bat Fly specimen mounted on insect pin

crop of New Zealand Bat Fly specimen mounted on insect pin

crop of photos to show more detail of this amazing fly living on bats

New Zealand Bat Fly specimen mounted on insect pin

New Zealand Bat Fly specimen mounted on insect pin

New Zealand Bat Fly specimen mounted on insect pin

New Zealand Bat Fly specimen data labels

#FlyFriday

paratype of New Zealand Bat Fly Mystacinobia zelandica Holloway, 1976 (Mystacinobiidae, USNMENT01312325) in #USNMDiptera collection - details here n2t.net/ark:/65665/3... (images soon there as well) - photos taken on Picturae Pinned Insect Digitization Conveyor

A screenshot of the title and abstract page of an article in Soil Organisms journal, entitled 'Advocating for the lobe and protection of soil animals through photography: the work of Frank Ashwood and Andy Murray'.

A photograph of a round, hard-bodied mite walking among a cluster of lollipop-shaped slime mold fruiting bodies.

Want to start doing soil animal macrophotography? Or fancy a rare glimpse into mine and @mesofauna.bsky.social's minds?

An article has just dropped in @soilorganismsj.bsky.social, showcasing mine and Andy's love for documenting soil biodiversity! 🧪🪱

Open Access: soil-organisms.org/SO/article/v...

A photographic plate of Uranotaenia unguiculata Edwards, 1913

🦟 This week, discover the unique ornaments of Uranotaenia unguiculata Edwards, 1913 ⬇️!
Explore details and distribution on GBIF🌱: https://www.gbif.org/species/1654194 .
Fascinating diversity of #mosquitoes !

Photos by @nil-rahola.bsky.social

#Entomology #Biodiversity 🧪🌐

pinned fly in side view

pinned fly in top view

pinned fly in frontal view

screenshot of title section of scientific article describing genus Ericomyia

#FlyFriday

assassin fly Ericomyia atomentosa (Oldroyd, 1960) (USNMENT00915299; Asilidae: Laphriinae) from Madagascar: Ranomafana (more details at n2t.net/ark:/65665/3...) - monotypic genus described by Jason Londt in 2015 - beautiful fly with metallic coloration

#asiloidflies #Asilidae

Taxonomist Appreciation Day post

I am in freakin' AWE of people doing primary taxonomic work.

To do it well, you need deep scholarship to track past naming (and misnaming) efforts.

You may need to hunt down specimens only to discover they are damaged, misindentified, or lost.

1/3

Illustration of Myosotis capitata in Vol 1 of The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus and Terror in the Years 1839-1843 :under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross by Dalton

Kew Herbarium specimen of Myosotis capitata will pencil illustration

I've been looking for an NZ botany species that combines specimens, illustrations, presence on Wiki, GBIF, @biodivlibrary.bsky.social, research expeditions, etc etc. Thanks to @rbgkew.bsky.social for digitising the perfect example to use in a Wiki Workshop. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosoti... #Wiki

Many brightly colored pinned moth specimens in an Entomology collection.

Undergrad and graduate students! Could your work benefit from visiting one of the NHMLAC’s collections? Apply for our Collections Study Award, due Apr. 1. I’d love to have students make use of our Entomology collection!

Details here:
tinyurl.com/bdduefsy

Next International Congress of Dipterology (ICDXI, ICD11) will be held in Zagreb, Croatia, between 11-16 July 2027 - details icd11.biol.pmf.hr - first registration deadline at end of February 2027

#Diptera #Flies #ICDXI

mmh, results look similar to yours. I actually didn't go through process of making a figure and wasn't sure to what size I would resize downloaded file png file.

Having svg option available is outstanding!

Very cool, simple interface, options we need. haven't figured out best settings to download a higher-resolution file. increasing dimensions makes a bigger map, but lines + symbols are pixelated when enlarging/cropping/sizing for a manuscript figure

@alexsmithants.bsky.social @jjmlynarek.bsky.social @schatzimanolis.bsky.social @tdikow.bsky.social @coleopterasam.bsky.social @dimitriforero.bsky.social @derekhennen.bsky.social would you mind looking at simplemappr.cloud and letting me know if this would be a usable replacement for SimpleMappr?

Sreenshot of macOS Finder window with GIS files displaying preview icons.

I've realsed GIS QucickLook, a macOS app that enables Finder to display previews of your GIS files, such as ESRI shape (.shp) files and GeoJSON files. Your file icons now show the corresponding maps! See github.com/rdmpage/gis-... (note that installation requires one extra step) #GISChat

opening slide of presentation

Excited to talk about "Biodiversity Data from Natural History Museums: Flies, Fieldwork, + Collection Digitization" in Department of Entomology seminar series at @univofmaryland.bsky.social in College Park, MD today - presentation slides at doi.org/10.25573/dat...

#collectiondigitization

📣 Are you a media organization in a low- or middle-income country? We’re supporting projects that strengthen biodiversity reporting, particularly in biodiversity-rich regions or countries facing unprecedented biodiversity loss. Grantees will receive €10,000–€12,000 each: https://loom.ly/gJ8BWDw

Illustration der Sargassum-Alge vor orange-türkisfarbenem Hintergrund mit Titel und Daten der Ausstellung im Senckenberg Naturmuseum Frankfurt.

Nahaufnahme eines kleinen Krebses zwischen braunen Sargassum-Algen.

🌊🦀🌿 Artenreicher Lebensraum oder Umweltplage im Klimawandel? Ab dem 27. März zeigt unsere neue Sonderausstellung „Sargassum – Fluch und Segen“ im Senckenberg Naturmuseum Frankfurt die zwei Gesichter der faszinierenden Braunalgengattung Sargassum.

👉 https://sgn.one/sargassum

📷 SGN / Torben Riehl

SimpleMappr Create free point maps for publications and presentations

Regrettably, I have decided to decommission SimpleMappr, www.simplemappr.net on September 1, 2026. You may read about its origins, what others have accomplished in its 18 year run, and the reasons why I must turn it off in a document I wrote last night bit.ly/simplemappr.

Thank you David for making this free tool available to us taxonomists. The large user base speaks to the importance of the tool. I will be sad to see it go!

ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY NIGHT IN SOUTH AFRICA
‼️Most of the Night at 35C in Cape Town
Records broken by up to 14C
Final 24hrs MINIMUMS Temp
31.0 Molteno
28.0 Cape Town
27.5 Koingnaas
26.8 Lamberts Bay
26.4 Springbok
25.5 Langebaanweg
24.8 Alexander Bay
23.1 Geelbak
23.0 Cape Point

BRUTAL HEAT WAVE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
A Historic event has kicked off in South Africa and Namibia

ALL TIME RECORDS SMASHED
44.0C Alexander Bay 🇿🇦
43.7C Luderiz Point 🇳🇦

Next days will be much hotter and dozens of historical records will be pulverized.

- YouTube Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Zu faul, zu oft krank? Vielleicht liegt’s auch am Verkehr. 🚗💸 Wir geben € im Leben fürs Auto aus – ohne Gesundheits- & #Klimaschäden. Andere Länder sind bei der #Verkehrswende weiter. Was wir lernen können & warum Merz ein #Tempolimit beschließen könnte im #Podcast 🎧