Glad you’re ok.

A mallard stands on a branch across a drainage ditch in Gloucestershire.

Duck

Those gingery brown cows have such rich milk though.

Local Guernsey cream ice cream. Mmmm…

Very cool #ant stuff for the weekend.

Original paper here:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Formica pratensis, the black-backed meadow ant on Guernsey- mega-industrious ladies! They were in the UK but disappeared in the 80’s

These colonies have been flagged to ensure that they are not strimmed by council workers & this also helps to show the public where these charismatic ants live

The text says: “Rent or buy this article. Prices vary by article type. From$1.95 to $39.95”

I followed the link… there is an irony here!

A small black ant tending its aphid herd under a pear tree leaf.

Here is Lasius niger quietly farming herds of aphids on our pear tree.

A tiny jumping spider stares at the camera.

The spider as spotted on our white ceiling (against blue walls).

My wife is used to me! Shortly after her Naked Butler Service (TM) delivered her Saturday morning coffee I spotted a small (4mm body length) spood on the ceiling.

Next thing I’m standing on the bed with macro rig chasing it around the ceiling!

#spiders
#JumpingSpiders
#Arachnids
#macrophotography

Not on the NASA Jupiter page though? Maybe AI?

It’s just showing off! 🤣

Caught it with a circular saw but it was spinning down anyway. Just took the fleshy tip off & a lump of the nail.

It’s already growing back. First rule of woodwork club… don’t get blood on the woodwork.

Clumsy and in charge of power tools, what could possibly go wrong?

My hand with the fingers, each wrapped over the one next to it.

You mean other people _can’t_? Maybe it’s common with AuADHD* people. Should be our secret handshake?

*[Follow up Q?. Why AuDHD when the ‘A’ in ADHD should still be there for ‘Attention’ & not substituted for the Au’ of ‘’Autistic’. I realise that this itself is a recursive neurospicy response]

My favourite #Sheildbug, seen them in Europe, never in the UK (yet!).

So good. In fact all the Dandelions, Violets and Cowslips were so good on our verges that the council had to mow them all down 🤬

The insects were struggling already!

#FossilFriday Space, the final frontier. Branching cyclostome bryozoan battling it out for living space with two cheilostome bryozoans on a shell from the Early Pleistocene Nukumaru Limestone, Whanganui Basin, New Zealand.

Oh yes! I printed my BSc and MSc on a Panasonic KX P1081. 9 pin dot matrix but it could do NLQ (near letter quality), however that meant four sweeps for every line of text… slooooow!

Someone at UCL threw out a printer hood with sound absorbing lining, which meant my flatmate could sleep!

Macro photograph of a wrinkled, rugged black ant in side view, walking on moss.

Most entomologists know of "Pogos" as dominant, large desert seed-harvesting ants. But some of the older lineages in the genus are tropical humid forest inhabitants. Here's Pogonomyrmex striatinodus, from the Ecuadorian cloud forest.

That’s very cool.

It reminds me of HeroForge.com . You can design figures and download the STL to print. My son and his nerd friends created figures that I have 3D printed for them (for their DnD games).

Alex’s post is topped by a spurious error from Bluesky on a red band that simply says ‘Forbidden’.

Yeah, forbidden bugs (apparently!)

Wasps move in on ant-plant partnership, disrupting a 10‑million‑year mutualism An international team of scientists from Queen Mary University of London, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences and other institutions has uncovered surprising new behavior in the tropical forests of Malaysian Borneo.

Predatory wasps are increasingly occupying Macaranga pearsonii plants in disturbed habitats, displacing protective ant colonies and potentially weakening forest regeneration. doi.org/hbxbd3

The same people who argue with climate scientists about who knows more about climate are naturally going to argue with the Pope about who knows more about Jesus.

And one of the two is evidence based!

A new taxon of saurischian dinosaur from the Coelophysis Quarry of New Mexico, USA (Triassic: latest Norian or Rhaetian) highlights herrerasaurian diversity in the latest Triassic The most complete record of the earliest dinosaur lineages is from the Carnian from the higher latitudes of Pangea (e.g. present-day Brazil, Argentina), but dinosaurian assemblages from the upper sta...

New early dinosaur from the Coelophysis quarry! Many, many congratulations to Simba on this publication, which is based on his undergrad work, and which he presented at our 200 years of the dinosaurs conf in 2024!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

It’s a good job the administration has been hiring lots of scientists… Oh Sh…

That’s exceptional!

I thought it was a photo!

A picture of my arm donating blood with the monkey covering it's eyes emoji over the point where the needle goes in.

📢 your regular reminder to give blood if you can!

super easy, free snacks, save some lives 👇🏼
www.blood.co.uk

Munching and scratching in the snow - typical winter #wombat pastimes in the mountains.
#WombatWednesday #fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #wombats

A large Red Wood Ant faces the camera as it tries to haul off a dead wasp-mimicking longhorn beetle.

A Red Wood #Ant (Formica rufa) hauling away a Wasp #Beetle (Clytus arietis) at Oxshott in Surrey.

Ants tend to collect protein to feed to larvae. The beetle was too much for one ant but her sisters helped cart it away!

#hymenoptera
#coleoptera
#entomology

Nature Table - Series 5 - 2: Miraculous Marine Midges and Church-Eating Fungus - BBC Sounds A church-eating fungus wows the guests.

Picture the scene. Painting the lounge/dining room, so no chairs anywhere.

I’m sat on the kitchen floor, pint of cider in hand.

Listening to @curataceae.bsky.social & @flygirlnhm.bsky.social in #NatureTable with Sue Perkins.

My back aches but laughed so much!

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

A scared spider hunched up in a green plastic flower container. Her abdomen is very swollen suggesting she is full of eggs.

Look who I disturbed while tidying the garden! She looks frightened. Sorry! Looks like she’s ready to pop. I put her somewhere nice and safe.