an enticing closeup of a sundew leaf showing the red trichomes (long hairs) with a sweet sticky dew at the end
a further back closeup of a sundew's whole plant showing multiple leaves that all have red trichomes (hairs) and sticky dew
if i were a bug, i would 1000% be falling for this 🤤
A top-down macro photo of a black beetle.
A closeup of the head of a black beetle.
For contrast, here is a non-purple Dicaelus 🖤 from the same area
A macro photo of the top of a beetle with brilliant purple iridescence on a gravel background
A macro photo of the side profile of a beetle with brilliant purple iridescence on a gravel background
A head on photo of a beetle with brilliant purple iridescence on a gravel background. The purple iridescence is mainly absent from the head.
One of the most brilliant purples 💜 I've ever seen in nature! Dicaelus purpuratus!
メガケリセラックス/メガケリケラックス クストーイ
Megachelicerax cousteaui
長大な鋏角と間隔の広い側棘を持つカンブリア紀の基盤的な鋏角類。
A cambrian basal chelicerate with elongated chelicerae and widely-spaced lateral spines.
#paleoart
New chelicerate fossil alert!!!
This time it's a triple threat: Cambrian Chelicerate with (visible and obvious) Chelicerae !!!
Mourning gecko for this Monday morning
A paper on the downward-facing ocellus because what the HECk!?>
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
side profile of a well-patterned bristletail (a shrimp-like insect) on a bark background. the bristletail blends in reasonably well with its patterning, despite flashes of iridescence from scales
front facing photo of a bristletail showing its compound eyes, two lateral ocelli (the two teardrop shaped eyes right under the compound eyes), and a median ocellus facing downwards (at the bottom tip of its 'face').
side profile of a non-patterned bristletail blending into its backgroundo of decayed wood. the bristletail is reflective and iridescent grey/tan
closeup view of the three 'tails' of a particularly well-patterned bristletail. each tail has white banding
🚨 AN APPRECIATION POST FOR BRISTLETAILS!!
My 3 fav facts in order of objective coolness:
-They have a downward-facing ocellus (eye)
-This is the only animal eye known to use xanthine for its tapetum (mirror)
-They have structurally-colored scales 🦋
Taking nominations for additional cool facts!!!
Ever wonder why everything is blurry when you open your eyes underwater?
The answer explained in this video seminar by @tannermierow.bsky.social and myself, recapping our new paper on amphibious vision in compound eyes!
cassyni.com/events/Ur5pU...
Orange-brown harvestperson, palps spread apart holding a little string of "snot" in a trapezoid shape
No little grabby hands visible here, but I caught one of my young harvestpeople with a little snot net at the ready
I LOVE HALFBEAKS!!! Very cool work :)
Here's our two halfbeaks during feeding time.
Here's a photo of one we managed to snag mid-strike! (Antrodiaetus unicolor)
A folding trapdoor spider my partner and I tempted out! Take a look at her closing her door at the end 🚪🚪
These guys are some of the most ancient (early diverging) mygalomorphs, more ancient than tarantulas and still retaining an tergite in the abdomen!
Stoked about the new Replication Studies section in Behavioral Ecology? Me too!
Jeremy Fox over at Dynamic Ecology interviewed me about our recent commentary on this topic and I'd love to hear the community's thoughts!
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/t...
Closeup photo of a marbled salamander face showing it's smiling face and bulging eyes
Dorsal view of the whole body of a marbled salamander with a hand for scale. The salamander is about the length of the index finger to the base of the thumb
Side profile view of the marbled salamander
This is the wrong season buddy!! Found a marbled salamander out yesterday - these guys do their
'migratory' mating in the fall but I guess this one was out for fun.
Figure showing a video still from a high speed video of a netcasting spider capturing a cricket with its elastic web held in the front legs. Left to the video still there are load-strain diagrams of different lines in the web showing that the upper lines are stiff and strong and the lower lines are highly extensible. Left to the diagrams there are scanning elactron microcopy images of the dfifferent lines, showing that the upper, stiffer lines are cables made of many parallal fibres, whereas the lower lines have a soft central core with adjoined looped fibres. The degree of looping correlates with how much the spiders post-process the silk after spinning. This way they can tailor the stiffness of each line in the web separately and create a vertical stiffness gradient throughout the whole web architecture from stiff and strong in the upper load bearing frame to soft and hyper-elastic in the lower part that is rapidly extended and thrown against the prey at high speed during the predatory strike.
Netcasting spiders modulate silk thread stiffness via a tailorable multi-fibre meta-structure to construct a web that is hyperelastic and high load-bearing at the same time.
Read about our discovery in PNAS: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
🔓 & with video content!
Caddo agilis, a large-eyed harvestman photographed on a reflective glass background, mostly a frontal view
Caddo agilis, a large-eyed harvestman photographed on a reflective glass background, mostly a lateral view
A photo of the lateral side of a preserved Caddo agilis under a scope
A closeup of a Caddo agilis eye under a microscope
SO EXCITED to be finally talking about some funky preliminary results on the eyes of this funky harvestman at #SICB2026 on Tuesday! Here are a few sneak peak pics :D
This is so so sick
Two orange-brown harvestmen under a log
A closeup of one orange-brown harvestman under the log
Another closeup of one orange-brown harvestman
Funky harvestmen overwintering! Libitioides sayi/albolineata depending on who you ask lol. This suborder of harvestmen (Laniatores) is very speciose in the Neotropics but a couple families do range into the US. The yellowish striping on the body is UV-fluorescent! Better pics to come in Jan!
Very proud of this new paper from the lab! Work by the magnificent Andrea Adden and many brilliant collaborators illuminate how moth and butterfly brains have evolved in light of different ecologies. Freely available here: rdcu.be/eVR3B; @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social
Hmm, might be Rilaena? I remember their pedipalps being weird like that I think
rdcu.be/eSIHs
We reported on the chemosensory toolkit of an Orb weaving spider in our PNAS paper earlier this year. Here, we report on a cursorial spider: similar, sex-specific sensory equipment and evidence for olfaction.
🧪🕷
How big is it? Reminds me of Hadrobunus or smthn similar...
Jay has been an amazing mentor for me both during my undergrad and now!! Highly recommend people apply! Feel free to reach out if you want a mentee perspective hahah :).
Do bees see nothing? Primates with damage to the visual cortex have no conscious visual experience, but display adaptive visual behaviour (a phenomenon called blindsight). Here I team up with two primate researchers to ask if bee vision could be similar to blindsight. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
a closeup of a a sleepy green tree frog pressed up against a reed
another closeup of a different green tree frog pressed up against a reed
Getting to live in a place with green tree frogs again has increased my mood by at least 10% each day
🚨 Using polarization vision to stabilize gaze 👀 would theoretically be helpful for animals living in visually noisy environments, but it seems two decapod crustaceans use achromatic cues instead. 🚨
From @maddy-janakis.bsky.social
Check it out! 🦀
academic.oup.com/iob/article/...
a jumping spider eating a cricket about twice its size on a mostly dark background. shot on a glass table
love how absolutely audacious larger jumping spiders are with their prey. this is Phidippus whitmani I think. look at the twinkle in her eye!!
Funders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake
go.nature.com/3X5lbUg
I've unlocked a new science badge!! 🎉🛡️🎉
This thoughtful piece by @meganlinnay.bsky.social expands beautifully on a short review I wrote, citing 'the Sumner-Rooney cost-benefit model' of eye loss 🥲 honoured!
For anyone interested in evolution in low light, have a read! 👉 doi.org/10.1111/1365...
