A photo of a drawing done with colouring pencils, ball point pens, markers and pencil. The drawing is of an anthropomorphic springtail, an animal which looks a lot like an insect. It wears a green overshirt, blue jeans and a green beanie. It holds a camera with one hand. It has four arms and two legs. Each limb has two clawed fingers. It is hairy and has two antenna and two black eyes. The springtail is light brown with patterns on its abdomen.

A traditonal art commission I did recently for @jaiiiiiii1.bsky.social :)

Thank you for commissioning me!!!

#art #bugart #springtail #artist #furryart #bug

Around the time of year now that the bugs start to return for real, so hopefully I’ll have more to post soon

Dendroides spp.?, 3/30/26

A beetle larva on the palm of a hand. It is similar in shape to an earwig and has similar light brown/dark red colors as well. It is vaguely worm-like in length, but has a caterpillar-like head with two short antennae poking out next to its bulky mandibles. Its legs are also quite short, but its earwig-like cerci are prominent.

New bug from a while back… found under the bark of a rotting log :D

This is Achrioptera manga, a giant phasmid or stick insect native to Madagascar.

The specific epithet, "manga" means blue in Malagasy & it's not hard to see why. Only males are blue.

The tiny back wings ("alae") are an example of brachyptery: they're useless for flight, but have other functions.

A map of the Rocky Mountains along the border of BC & Alberta, Canada covered with 5 painted butterflies & 5 caterpillars. One butterfly, an orange, brown, black & white Painted Lady, sits in the top left corner, beside it is a grey, black & orange Rocky Mountain Parnassian, lower to the right is an orange & black Monarch & the Mourning Cloak, purple & brown with blue spots & a white fringe. At the bottom facing down is a buttery yellow & black Western Tiger Swallowtail.

"Alit (Rocky Mountain High)", oil on vintage map, 10 1/4 x 14", 2025- $450 (Cdn). #art #sciart #invertebrates

"Elephant mosquitoes" in genus 'Toxorhynchites' are one of the few groups of mosquitoes that don't drink blood.

The larvae of many species in this genus eat the larvae of other mosquito genera, making them CANNIBALS of a sort.

So introducing them can *reduce disease-causing mosquito species*.

An original digital illustration by Loadofolbobbins of a female Emperor moth. The moth's small creamy coloured antennae lead to a dark brown fluffy body with a white stripe at the top. It's a large moth with intricately patterned wings, both sets of wings are spread out so you can see them in their full glory. At the base of each wing is a mid brown stripe that has a creamy white stripe above it, above this is an area of dark brown made up of tiny dots almost like a pointillist painting. There are a series of three wavy stripes above this that are two brown with a creamy stripe in the middle. On each wing is a peacock like eye spot in a cream area which is surrounded by the same pointillism style dotting surrounding it in various shades of brown, reds and creams. On the upper wings there is a red almost heart shaped spot towards the tip. The moth looks like it has landed on a piece of white paper full of black ink and charcoal smudges.

Today's #RepostYourArt prompt is soft, I feel the soft fluffy body of this stunning female emperor moth should do the trick...

#SciArt #Illustration #ArtSky #Moths #Nature

say happy birthday to my bf NOOOOWWWWWWWW

Me holding a large insect in my hands.

A close up on the insect showing long wings a small head with intimidating looking mandibles. He can’t bite with the mandibles though, it’s thought that females are attached to males with large ones.

Making friends with a handsome male Dobsonfly.
Intag Refugio, Ecuador

A painting of a beautiful large bodied butterfly called the purple-washed eyed metalmark, its chocolate brown wings have touches of magenta and royal blue in among lavender sheen on the lower wings, and stripes on the upper wings with a large gold and black eye on each. It’s accented in a gold foil against the black backdrop so it stands out.

#RepostYourArt Day 11 is Sparkles.

I actually used some glitter brushes in the wings of this amazing purple-washed eyed metalmark #butterfly, a really lovely #insect. Feel free to view full size.

🐡 ✨ 🦋 #art #painting #DigitalArt

Apparently it’s like double the length it was supposed to be though so I’m gonna have to condense the shit out of it. Man

LITERATURE REVIEW DRAFT DONE YAYYYY

I’ll have to wait for my professor to leave comments on it so I can revise it for the final version but that’s like. Biggest assignment of the semester mostly done now

it’s cool to see people are finding out about 17776 from today. I read it last semester as assigned reading for one of my classes and oh my god it is so good

Writing a literature review for class is funny because it doesn’t really feel difficult so far once my professor explained the formula to me but damn it is SOOOO TIME-CONSSUMMMINNGGH

I know that a lot of people ended up moving to bluesky to escape the mess that Twitter had become. And I understand that completely, that place is horrible.

That being said, if you're someone who posts AI generated images and videos, you're just helping to make this place more like Twitter. (1/3)

Photinus corruscus, 3/30/26

A firefly resting on an arm with blurry greenery in the background. The firefly is almost completely black, save reddish-yellow outlines along the pronotum.

Bugs may be coming out earlier than anticipated… here’s a winter firefly! The “winter” in its name tells you how cold it gets up here

Fossil of Purple Emperor (Apatura) - like butterfies, complete with wing pattern markings.

Purple Emperor butterfly, ca. 30 Mya. See: phys.org/news/2026-04...

Dark brownish thorax of Heterogynis penella moth with 2 shorts antenna, almost translucent furry wings, gripping on a slim blade of grass. With a light green contrast background.

Still going on with the #SciArt challenge! In conjunction with #YearOfTheMoth
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Here's 9th moth. Meet the playful Heterogynis penella. 💙 #playful #moth #teamMoth #mothweek2026 #mothweekart26 #mothweek mothing with
@dinalab.bsky.social @amnh.org

Simple digital painting of a millipede colored like the non-binary flag and a centipede colored like the trans flag, with the text "Happy trans fay of visibility!!!" on it.

!!!!!
#tdov #TransDayOfVisibility #bugs

wishing all other trans individuals a happy TDOV!! it’s a little scary for me but I’d like to make more strides into being recognized as enby irl more

No matter how far along you’re in the process though I wish you all the best ^^

Oxygen supply through the tracheolar–muscle system does not constrain insect gigantism - Nature New evidence suggests that diffusive oxygen transport through the tracheolar–muscle system is not the limiting factor on insect body size.

Seems like a pretty important result; title says it all.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I enjoyed my little burst of activity here but college semester resumes tomorrow. Time to crawl back into the little leaf I came from

My drawing of a wasp-mimic moth - an incredible black and yellow specimen with long orange antennae.

My drawing of a bright pink and yellow elephant hawkmoth.

A mottled green and brown Oleander hawkmoth, with small pink bits on its wings.

A striped hawmoth - mostly brown, with flashes of hot pink on its lower wings.

Thinking about how cool moths are.

This is true, but I do think that most insects considered “giant” still don’t reach nearly the same sizes corresponding with niche you’d see in the paleozoic. It’s worth noting those that do approach sizes such as phasmids, rhino beetles, and leps all match your listed criteria

Keep in mind, mammals only diversified during the Cenozoic!!! Insects can still rapidly diversify even following extinction events, but in general I find that following the Carboniferous, vertebrates had diversified too much for insects to assume the niches of macrofauna as efficiently as before

of course that’s not to say there weren’t other factors like the Great Dying… but in general I find it interesting that once insects largely became prey for vertebrates it became nearly impossible for them to assume the same niches as their own predators. Kinda like mammals during the Mesozoic

I’ve held for a while now that a lot of the reason giant bugs disappeared was because vertebrates had evolved to fill the same niches more efficiently

Looking at pterosaurs emerging suspiciously soon after the meganisopterans died out

300 Million Years Ago, Insects Were Enormous. That Stopped – And We’re Probably Wrong About Why Dragonflies could probably still be huge if they believed in themselves enough.

A long time ago (even before I was born), some insects were huge – we're talking 2 foot wingspans. The dogma has always been that this was due to high oxygen levels then compared to now. But there's some new evidence that this isn't the case.

🧪🪲🪳

www.iflscience.com/300-million-...