Invasion biology, arachnology, ethology, agroecology (University of Florida, CREC)
But also: tabletop board games!
| Pronouns | she/they |
| Location | Winter Haven, Florida |
| arachnonaut |
In other news, it's orbweaver mating season. Always a drawn-out and tentative process. These are a _Larinioides_ couple, the larger female on the left, male on the right.
#ArthroBeauty #DailySpiderPic #arachnids #spiders #orbweavers #Araneae #Araneidae #SpiderBehaviour
from this random paper: mites riding on birds from flower to flower!
in honeyeater-riding mites, the immature mites ride on the adult mites which ride on the honeyeaters (yo dawg I heard you like phoresy…)
hummingbird-flower mites hide in hummingbird nostrils!! they must be pretty small (i hope they're small…)
Seeman, Owen D., & Walter, David Evans. (2023). Phoresy and Mites: More Than Just a Free Ride. Annual Review of Entomology (Vol. 68, Issue 1, pp. 69–88). Annual Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-120220-013329 
Dolophones sp., the "wrap around" spider did *nothing wrong* -- these spiders are literal wall flowers (branch buds?) and just want to curl up and not be noticed.
You can pick them up and they will run around in a panic until they find a place to "wrap" so they can feel safe.
They are unlikely to bite, and if they do their venom isn't anything much.
Let them be, poor things live in Australia with all kinds of dangerous creatures like bull ants and Australians.
Science needs your help finding candy-stripe cobweb spiders!
This Sunday, 1-3 PM EST (17:00 UTC, Unix time 1689526800), spider youtuber Travis McEnery livestreams with @ibycter and Dr. Catherine Scott about the ongoing Enoplognatha research project and how you can contribute.
Our own @spiderdaynightlive will also be doing a little workshop on how to take awesome spider photos with your phone!
More deets: https://youtu.be/gtJgGeNhn5A
#arachnews #arachnids #spiders #SpiderSunday #CommunityScience #CitizenScience #SciComm
one of today's highlights was finding a patch of lamb's ear full of rather docile wool carder bees who let me get close enough for photos!
these bees get their name from their behaviour of scraping fluff for their nests from fuzzy plants like this. they are very cute.
Some of ya'll struggle with romance. Here are some tips. When you meet her she will probably be curled up. Like you, her response to *most* new things is to curl up in a ball and wait for it to stop or go away. You are a "new thing." What you need to do is sing her a little song so she knows you are also a pill millipede just like her. Then she'll uncurl.
The sounds are called stridulations made by rubbing parts of the exoskeleton together. "cricricricricri"
Be ungovernable, like birds who make nests OUT OF ANTI-BIRD SPIKES. A new study describes resourceful Dutch & Belgian corvids besting evil architecture by stealing metal anti-bird strips and using them like thorny twigs, to construct their homes.
Like thorns, the spikes may protect their nests from predators.
Lead author Auke-Florian Hiemstra wrote an epic 🧵 about his research that's worth a read: https://twitter.com/AukeFlorian/status/1678703433900064773
Paper: https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/organisatie/publicaties/deinsea/deinsea-21/
Just a reminder that you typically find #bugs and #spiders in your sink because they fall in and can't get out, not because they want to live there (though the water source is probably welcome). Not all small creatures can climb smooth surfaces.
If this is a frequent issue, you can make a little escape ladder by putting a bit of string or toilet paper down so any critters at the bottom can climb out.
neville park
Colin Purrington
myrmepropagandist
Mindy Weisberger (she/her)