An historic illustration of two butterflies and a hairy caterpillar. There are green leaves and white flowers in the background.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library is turning 20! 🎉
We’re starting celebrations with a special anniversary blog series #BHLat20: Treasures from BHL, featuring remarkable works chosen by the people who know them best: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/03/cele... #ILoveBHL
A line graph of the number of NSF awards in fiscal 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is well below the other curves and increasing only very slowly.
NSF Update through March 13, 2026
1/2
Introducing the newest species of moth from the US, and likely one of the rarest. Cicinnus albarenicolus is known from just 19 specimens, all in white sand scrub in peninsular Florida. Only one verified extant population! zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1817...
🚨🚨🚨Publication alert! 🚨🚨🚨
Taking a breather from #uproarchallenge, there's a new paper online today that was several years in the making (all the best papers are!):
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Extremely proud of my Ph.D. student, Sajan KC, for describing a new species of giant skipper, Aegiale occidentalis, KC, McGuire, and Shirey from Sonora: doi.org/10.3897/zook...
Super excited about these results and new system.
Mapping, Expression, Loss-of-Function
I'm floored by how this locus seem to integrate all the spatial info to sketch the minute details of the phenotype, and how this is prone to evol tweaks
Large hyperdiverged haplotype without an inversion.
Now online! In this review, we cover four major topics on butterflies and moths: their evolutionary history and diversification dynamics, genomics, global diversity patterns, and conservation 🦋🌏 (1/8) @natrevbiodiv.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
The Map butterfly differs in wing size and color between seasons. We tested how these differences influence body temperature dynamics, revealing potentially optimized thermal performance between seasons. 🦋☀️
The study, led by Dani and Irča, is in preprint version: doi.org/10.64898/202...
At this risk of drama, I had a few prospective students with applications returned with a single line, "This is not possible" when it is very much something totally possible - we scrubbed "climate" this round from everything.
ouch.
a small praying mantis is standing on a hand reaching towards another pair of hands holding a smart phone taking a picture of it under dramatic light in a dark area
a dark bird with wet feathers is holding its wings up and arching its long neck around to groom itself with its long pointy beak
a child is standing in front of a ledge with a light casting upward to illuminate a portion of a wall covered in hieroglyphics
hands are gently holding a small red bird next to a gauge measuring its leg while someone watches in the distance
Good photography is a powerful tool to help tell stories and capture imaginations. 👏👏👏 Congrats to our staff Mariela Pajuelo, Kristen Grace & Jeff Gage, each recognized for their photography featuring elements of natural and cultural history! 📸 Story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/thre...
butterfly timeline cleans
a person is standing on a narrow library corridor looking through a card catalog on one side and holing open drawers full of short planks of wood
a person is leaning over a drawer in a cabinet full of shallow drawers full of tiny boxes of small fossils in a collections room of some kind
Last call! 👉 Florida Museum Registrar
🏛️📌 Apply by Oct 31, 2025
The Registrar oversees the technical and regulatory aspects of collection accessions, permitting, & exchanges.
🔸 Full position info: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/caree...
🔸 Apply via @ufl.edu: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...
Imagine what you might see if you could visualize relationships across data object-entity relationships in your database. See #TaxonWorks #biologicalassociations #magic #Miridae. @entcollnet.bsky.social @gbif.org @dissco.bsky.social have a look-see
You crossed my mind today! Many fond memories :)
Hope you are well! ✨💞
#People #Networks. @vmshirey.bsky.social does this bring back memories? #TaxonName #Authors #dataviz #WoRMS #CatalogueOfLife look!
A candle with the words "Smells like Data Chaos" with a picture of a burning file cabinet.
A postcard with a "Fuck RFK" sign put up to cover a broken window, evoking the bullet-ridden windows from the CDC attack
A mug with the text "FAFO is not a good public health strategy."
Decided to donate to the CDC mutual aid network to support laid-off and furloughed employees. They also have some *excellent* merch: www.cdcresourceportal.org
Two adult caribou and two baby caribou stand together on a foggy plain covered in patchy snow. The adults look towards the camera.
The Central Yukon Resource Management Plan has been rescinded.
“The Senate just plunged northern Alaska into chaos, ripping up a balanced land management plan that Alaskans spent years collaborating on,” said Cooper Freeman, our AK director. 🧵
More of our Public Lands work ➡️ bit.ly/3KIdNeK
A smooth green caterpillar with off-white stripes running down its back sits among pine needles on a pine twig. It has a reddish brown stripe in the middle of the back between two of the off-white stripes. The neck is turquoise and it has yellow stripes on the head.
A smooth green caterpillar with off-white stripes running down its back sits among pine needles on a pine twig. It has a reddish brown stripe in the middle of the back between two of the off-white stripes, and reddish brown colors on the top and bottom of the off-white side stripe. The neck is turquoise and it has yellow stripes on the head.
A smooth green caterpillar with off-white stripes sits among pine needles on a pine twig. It's looking at the camera. The neck is turquoise and it has yellow and black stripes on the head and face.
A smooth green caterpillar with off-white stripes sits among pine needles on a pine twig. It's looking at the camera. The neck is turquoise and it has yellow and black stripes on the head and face.
Continuing the series of caterpillars that look like candy, this pine sphinx larva looks very edible. I'm sure it's not, though 😂
Note that this species of hawkmoth larva does not have a "horn", so I guess it's not technically a "hornworm".
#Sphingidae: #Lapara
NC, USA
In hindsight, I guess you are all mammal friends so I probably should have specified mammologist...
Hi #mammal friends, are there any rasterized density maps for white tailed deer out there? Preferably with some historical data (ca. 1970 - present) as well? Many thanks!
the butterfly effect is when you see one and go ‘ooh butterfly!’ and then your day is better
Forecast 2-m temperatures today in Finland, based on the MEPS regional model.
20 straight days with 30 °C in Finland! Truly unprecedented heatwave still in full swing with maximum today about 32-33 degrees.
Even the Arctic regions (e.g. Sodankylä Tähtelä) have seen three weeks above 25 °C, and may rival tomorrow their August heat records.
two people are sitting on either side of a small wooden table in a dark space illuminated by a flashlight one is holding and looking at one of several large vials on the table
Nocturnal Neighbors 🦋🔦 Celebrating National Moth Week
Our lepidopterist @vmshirey.bsky.social is hosting two FREE evening events (July 25 & 26) that invite you to join scientists on night collecting fieldwork on @ufl.edu campus.
Pre-registration required:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/event/noctur...
On this #BugBanter Podcast, we’ve got a plan to save butterflies.🦋🆘
This episode is all about diving into why butterflies are struggling & the steps everyone can take to help them recover!
Audio & transcript 📻 xerces.org/bug-banter/s...
Video w/ captions 📺 www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNzR...
Photo of dozens of winged insects swarming in a clear sky, their gauzy wings glowing, backlit by the sun.
Bluesky isn’t dying, it’s just buggy.
Cinnamon rolls in a baking dish.
Too late/languished to add “baking” to my alliterative interests? Blueberry cardamom rolls brought to you by current events.
Gorgeous shot of one of my absolute favorite genera.
Had a few evening thunderstorms here in FL that took out my power for a bit. What a wake-up call to get my butt in gear WRT hurricane season!
