#invertebrates — Public Fediverse posts

Cressida cressida, the clearwing swallowtail or 'big greasy' butterfly. Large and conspicuously coloured - it is toxic to potential predators. Toxins are absorbed from the food that it eats as a caterpillar. Seen in Cape York. FNQ.

#nature #photography #australia #wildlife #insects #butterflies #invertebrates

Cressida cressida, the clearwing swallowtail or 'big greasy' butterfly. Large and conspicuously coloured - it is toxic to potential predators. Toxins are absorbed from the food that it eats as a caterpillar. Seen in Cape York. FNQ.

#nature #photography #australia #wildlife #insects #butterflies #invertebrates

Cressida cressida, the clearwing swallowtail or 'big greasy' butterfly. Large and conspicuously coloured - it is toxic to potential predators. Toxins are absorbed from the food that it eats as a caterpillar. Seen in Cape York. FNQ.

#nature #photography #australia #wildlife #insects #butterflies #invertebrates

Cressida cressida, the clearwing swallowtail or 'big greasy' butterfly. Large and conspicuously coloured - it is toxic to potential predators. Toxins are absorbed from the food that it eats as a caterpillar. Seen in Cape York. FNQ.

#nature #photography #australia #wildlife #insects #butterflies #invertebrates

Cressida cressida, the clearwing swallowtail or 'big greasy' butterfly. Large and conspicuously coloured - it is toxic to potential predators. Toxins are absorbed from the food that it eats as a caterpillar. Seen in Cape York. FNQ.

#nature #photography #australia #wildlife #insects #butterflies #invertebrates

Here are some hymenopterans 🐝🌿

#bugsky #invertebrates

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:66x6tziyavg3nmt3x46xu2bw/post/3mv6r4n6npk2s

Checked on my free range menagerie. Here are some lepidopterans 🦋🌿

#bugsky #invertebrates

24-Aug-2026
Evolutionary arm race in Cenozoic seas shaped modern diversity of marine #snails

A large scale study of nearly 700 species reveals the #evolution ary relationships and history of #Neogastropoda, a diverse group of marine snails. The findings provide new evidence for their single origin, identify four new families and reveal a previously undetected burst of diversification in the early #Cenozoic.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1141219

#science #marineBiology #invertebrates #gastropods

💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: 🦑🌊 About 15 years ago, Japanese researchers on a #research vessel photographed a shoal of roughly 100 neon flying #squid gliding in formation above the #Pacific #Ocean, about 600 km from #Tokyo.

The species uses a funnel-like organ called the hyponome to jet #water, propelling itself through both #air and #sea. Scientists remain unsure why the squid fly in unison, suggesting they may be evading a #predator like a #shark.

👉 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/12/like-an-alien-invasion-the-neon-flying-squid-that-can-fly-in-formation-above-the-ocean

#marinebiology #marine #biology #cephalopod #animals #behavior #science #nature #invertebrates #wildlife #adaptation #aliens #neon

Mixed media

‘These are human fires, not wildfires’: Dunwich reflects on the devastation
By Patrick Barkham and Pippa Neill

As residents, nature wardens and experts consider the damage to the heathland and how to restore it, the climate crisis is foremost in their minds

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/09/these-are-human-fires-not-wildfires-dunwich-reflects-on-the-devastation

#Suffolk #Wildfires #Climatecrisis #Environment #UKnews #Birds #Wildlife #England #Conservation #TheNationalTrust #RSPB #Endangeredhabitats #Animals #Invertebrates #Insects #TheGuardian #PatrickBarkham #PippaNeill

‘These are human fires, not wildfires’: Dunwich reflects on the devastation https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/09/these-are-human-fires-not-wildfires-dunwich-reflects-on-the-devastation #Suffolk #Wildfires #ClimateCrisis #Environment #UkNews #Birds #Wildlife #England #Conservation #TheNationalTrust #Rspb #EndangeredHabitats #Animals #Invertebrates #Insects

#Honeybees and #shrimp are now getting vaccinated
#Vaccines that target #invertebrates’ innate #immunesystems could be a major boon for agriculture
It has become increasingly clear that #innateimmunesystem has own way of creating immune memory. Scientists think this memory is achieved through #epigenetic changes, modifications to #DNA that don’t alter genetic sequence, and that these epigenetic changes can be passed from one generation to the next.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/honeybees-and-shrimp-getting-vaccinated
https://archive.ph/guvRa

One of the highlights of my day was when William Harland, a talented ecology undergrad here at #LincolnUniversityNZ, stopped by my office to show me his photos of temnocephalid flatworms. These distinctive squat tentacled flatworms live in colonies on NZ's freshwater crayfish, koura, and eat scraps left over when the koura feed. They apparently cause no bother to the koura.

William found these at Poolburn Reservoir in central Otago.

Amazing!

The photo is CC-BY William Harland: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/341041723
Here are more photos of these crazy flatworms on #iNaturalistNZ: https://inaturalist.nz/observations?verifiable=true&taxon_id=868829&place_id=6803&preferred_place_id=6803

#invertebrates #flatworms #NaturalHistory #NZ #Freshwater #crayfish #crustaceans #nature #crayfish

Why is #JavaScript so popular? I hate everything about it.

I'm speaking at the #Canberra Field #Naturalists meeting at #ANU next month on #Malaise trapping and the #insects and other #invertebrates that surround us without our noticing them.

I expect most of my slides to be arrays of four or six #microscope images with a header (probably a family name in most cases) and captions for each image.

I don't want to lay out all these images in #LibreOffice (or any similar presentation tool) because I'm a perfectionist and getting it all tidy will take forever.

So, I decided to try out #Slidev, #Marp and other #Markdown-based presentation tools. The Markdown part is very appealing, but they all lean hard into JavaScript. That would be fine so long as I don't have to think about that side of things.

Slidev's AppleBasic theme seemed to be the best starting point, so I started hacking it to add som extra gridded image views. Plain image grids were not too challenging, but I really want captions for each image, so I started trying to understand how the templates use the forest of underlying JS libraries and CSS artefacts to produce the displayed slides.

Frankly, the whole thing is so opaque and would take me much longer to understand than preparing multiple presentations by hand would.

Then I realised I can use #montage on the command line to produce the kind of layouts I want, and I can script #exiftool to extract and prepare the captions which will save time.

So, my new plan is to write a #Python script that processes a #YAML file listing all the slides, titles and image paths. It can generate PNG images that are close to the target 1920*1080 size (give or take a little). I'll then use LibreOffice for a couple of more text-oriented or irregular slides, export those and combine all the images into a PDF.

I'm sure this will be way faster than battling Node.js. Not sure why I felt I had to write it up.

https://fieldnatsact.com/

Apex predators in prehistoric Colombian oceans would have snacked on killer whales today https://phys.org/news/2025-01-apex-predators-prehistoric-colombian-oceans.html paper: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/202/1/zlad092/7275647

"The Paja ecosystem thrived with #plesiosaurs, #ichthyosaurs, and abundant #invertebrates, giving rise to one of history's most intricate marine food webs... The discovery of giant marine reptile apex predators occupying a seventh trophic level underscores the Paja ecosystem's unmatched diversity and complexity"

@KateShaw has made a great new episode about a mystery cambrian invertebrate, a mystery fish, and some other mysteries. Also, some donation links are included at the end, if you can donate to help people affected by Hurricane Helene and its aftermath.
https://strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net/2024/09/30/episode-400-four-mysteries/

#birds
#sharks
#invertebrates
#paleozoic

Meet the smallest animal known to spread #seeds with its poop https://www.science.org/content/article/meet-smallest-animal-known-spread-seeds-its-poop

#Earwigs and #woodlice as some of the world's smallest internal #SeedDispersal agents: Insights from the #ecology of Monotropastrum humile (Ericaceae) https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.10519

"the #woodlouse is the smallest animal yet known to disperse seeds by eating them. It and other small #invertebrates play underappreciated roles in spreading #plants far and wide."

Essex Skipper, Thymelicus lineola Canon 5D3 Sigma 70 2.8 f/4.5 1/320 iso: 100 Prague, Czech Republic 6/24/2024 #Skippers #hesperidae #SaveButterflies #butterflies #insects #macro #grasslands #invertebrates #Sigma

Small Skipper, Thymelicus sylvestris Canon 400D EF 100 2.8 f/7.1 1/160 iso: 400 Milovice, Czech Republic 5/18/2009 #Skippers #Hesperidae #lepidoptera #SaveButterflies #butterflies #insects #invertebrates #Macro #grasslands

Black-veined Moth, Siona lineata on Sanfoin, Onobrychis Canon 400D EF 100 2.8 f /5 1/200 iso: 800 Srbsko, Czech Republic 5/26/2009 #mothsMatter #geometridae #lepidoptera #insects #invertebrates #macro #grasslands

Essex Skipper, Thymelicus lineola Canon 400D EF 100 2.8 f/5.6 1/100 iso: 200 Srbsko, Czech Republic 7/5/2008 #Skippers #hesperidae #SaveButterflies #lepdoptera #insects #invertebrates #Macro #grasslands

Checquered Skipper, Carterocephalus palaemon Canon 400D EF 100 2.8 f/4.6 1/250 iso: 400 Celakovice-Jirina, Czech Republic 5/20/2011 #Skippers #hesperidae #hesperids #SaveButterflies #butterflies #Lepidoptera #insects #invertebrates #macro #grasslands

Black-veined moth, Siona lineata Canon 400D EF 100 2.8 f/9 1/200 iso: 400 MIlovice, Czech Republic 6/10/3009 #mothsMatter #moths #geometridae #looper #Lepidoptera #insects #invertebrates #macro #grasslands

Checquered Skipper, Carterocephalus palaemon Canon 400D Ef 100 2.8 f/7.1 1/100 iso: 800 Prague, Czech Republic 5/21/2010 #Skippers #hesperidae #Butterflies #lepidoptera #SaveButterflies #Insects #invertebrates #macro #grasslands

Silver-spotted Skipper, Hesperia comma Canon 400D Ef 100 2.8 f/7.1 1/250 iso: 200 Srbsko, Czech Republic 8/10/2008 #Hesperidae #Skippers #SaveButterflies #butterflies #lepidoptera #insects #invertebrates #macro #Grasslands

Dingy Skipper, Erynnis tages Canon 400D EF 100 2.8 f/5.6 1/320 iso: 400 Srbsko, Czech Republic 5/23/2010 #Skippers #Hesperidae #Lepidoptera #Butterflies #SaveButterfles #insects #invertebrates #macro #grasslands

Light Emerald, Campaea margaritaria Canon 7D EF 100 2.8 f/4.5 1/320 iso: 200 Prague, Czech Republic 8/30/ 2013 #mothsMatter #Geometridae #Looper #Lepidoptera #insects #invertebrates #moths #Macro

Silver-spotted Skipper, Hesperia comma Canon 400D EF 2.8 f/2.8 1/160 iso: 400 Srbsko, Czech Republic 8/5/2010 #Skippers #hesperidae #SaveButterflies #butterflies #lepidoptera #insects #Invertebrates #macro #grasslands

Mallow Skipper, Carcharodus alceae Canon 400D EF 100 2.8 f/10 1/125 iso: 200 Prague, Czech Republic 5/3/2009 #Skippers #hesperiidae #Lepidoptera #butterflies #SaveButterflies #Insects #invertebrates #macro #Grasslands