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Ainsley S

@americanbeetles.bsky.social

7.3K followers 1.2K following 5.5K posts

I hope you like pictures of bugs. Curating at CMNH, teaching at CMU, beetling everywhere

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · Jun 2

I'm proud of our li'l Schoolhouse Rock for Insect Taxonomists cartoon, but if you're not in Bug World here are some annotations for you... www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYSI... cc @danlwarren.bsky.social

The Pest Is Still To Come

YouTube video by Dan Warren

www.youtube.com

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 2h

RT specifically for @mothpotato.bsky.social, who I assume shares my frustration that none of them are exhaling thru their spiracles

House & Field Negro Digest Quarterly @morethanmud.bsky.social · 2h

four illustrations of Alice meeting the pipe-smoking caterpillar as it sits on a toadstool mushroom.

art by Gwynedd M. Hudson (1922). color palette is rich reds and orabges. the caterpillar is dark blue with orange symbols.

art by WH Walker (1907)

the color palette for sky and ground is pale green. alice is dressed in a white dress, the caterpillar wears a red fez and is smoking a hookah.

art by Gertrude Kay (1923). alice has long blonde hair and is wearing a white dress, the caterpillar is two shades of blue and smokes a hookah.

art by Bessie Pease Gutmann (1907). alice has short brown hair, thr caterpillar is pale and dark green and smokes a long pipe. they are in a field of yellow flowers.

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 2h

I guess I'm going to give Tidal a try, they seem to have a respectable number of Warren Zevon tracks for my geriatric enjoyment

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 2h

it's fun and easy to cancel a paid spotify subscription! And they show you a cute picture of a dog too :)

screenshot of the sad dog picture Spotify shows you when you cancel your paid subscription because they're running recruitment ads for ICE

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 14h

It’s so inscrutable AND they won’t share the methodology??

Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 14h

1. Nobody who makes charts like this should be involved in higher ed policy
2. We stopped using 16S for phylogenetics in the 1990s, get with the program mate

Tim McLellan @timmclellan.bsky.social · 2d

Some very interesting revelations about UniForum at Senate Estimates last night.

First, ANU exec appears to have misled the Senate by implying they gave staff access to the underlying UniForum data and methodology.

In fact, they gave staff little more than opaque scatter plots like this one👇

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Tim McLellan @timmclellan.bsky.social · 26d

UniForum is a “benchmarking service” that Nous provides to universities globally.

University executives frequently invoke UniForum as an objective justification for cuts and redundancies.

This UniForum graph, for example, was a centerpiece of the case ANU’s ex-VC made to Council for Renew ANU. 👇

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 14h

Yes, YES

Reposted by Ainsley S

Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 15h

Spookiest decoration at the "Zoo Goes Boo" event at the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids? Giant model of parasitoid wasps hatching from cocoons affixed to their caterpillar host.

Large model of a green caterpillar, the back of which is covered by dozens of white cocoons. Wasps can be seen emerging from some of the cocoons.

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 14h

Same size, otherwise you’ll never fit the Architeuthis on there

Reposted by Ainsley S

Jeffrey Heilveil (he/him) @nigronia.bsky.social · 20h

June 11 -27, 2026, I'm teaching a 16-day field course on stream ecology. It's heavily focused on independent research projects, so they get some exposure to field research. Open to students from any institution. DM with your email if you want a poster to send your students. #Ecology #PUI #insects

Students learning to electrofish in a small stream in the woods.

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 20h

the docs ❤️

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 22h

dragonball‘d the teen

lil Toriyama-style doodle of a surly teen son, could be anybody’s really

Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 22h

A fine Sunday noontide of drawing animes with the son

Cafe table with sketchbooks, in which two people are drawing cartoons. I am attempting to master Goku.

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 1d

It’s called the PHYLOCODE and it’s VERY SERIOUS, okay

Reposted by Ainsley S

Darren Irwin (he / him) @darrenirwin.bsky.social · 1d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

"Developed new species concept"

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 1d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/

hammancheez @hammancheez.bsky.social · 1d

"The chancellor approved it"

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Reposted by Ainsley S

Ignacio GHOULup-Diaz @igallupd.bsky.social · 1d

BABY NUMBATSNUMBATSNUMBATS:

"Baby numbats spotted at two wildlife sanctuaries in hopeful sign for one of Australia’s rarest marsupials"

"Video shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park in south-western NSW"

Baby numbats spotted at two wildlife sanctuaries in hopeful sign for one of Australia’s rarest marsupials

Video shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park in south-western NSW

www.theguardian.com

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 1d

get halberd’d, losers

Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 1d

Australia is truly up there with Madagascar on the list of countries with mind-blowing biological treasures that the people in power refuse to even try to protect

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 1d

turns out it was bc they were on Christmas Island, which only raises more questions (about how they survived the crab swarms)

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 1d

tbh I slightly lost my mind at this, how could any shrew survive in the land of the antechinus and dunnart??

Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 1d

Extinction is forever www.theguardian.com/environment/...

And then there were none: Australia’s only shrew declared extinct

The tally of Australian mammals extinct since 1788 is now 39 species – far more than for any other country

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Ainsley S

ProPublica @propublica.org · 2d

Federal workers: If you were impacted by the Trump administration's just-announced mass layoffs, our reporters are here to listen.

We understand you may be taking a risk in contacting us, and we take your privacy seriously.

Here's how to get in touch securely 👇

How to Contact ProPublica or Send a Tip Securely — ProPublica

Our job is to hold people and institutions accountable. To do that, we need evidence.

propublica.org

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Reposted by Ainsley S

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 2d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 2d

Just like real Pittsburgh :(

Reposted by Ainsley S

⚡️🔩Felsenstein's Monster🔩⚡️ @josephwb.bsky.social · 2d

"Figure 3"
- @bembidion.bsky.social (1991)

#art #phylogenetics

FIGURE 3. Trees in different islands are connected through a sequence of trees of greater length. Higher plateaus represent shorter trees. The two highest plateaus correspond to the most-parsimonious trees of island-8 (left) and island-12 (right). Trees in these two islands differ by several branch rearrangements. They differ by five rearrangements through relatively long trees (lower path) or by more rearrangements through trees only one step longer than the most parsimonious (upper path).

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 2d

srsly! He was raised on Octonauts and Dinosaur Train, he never learned the simple joy of watching a kind man put on a cardigan and feed his fish

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Ainsley S @americanbeetles.bsky.social · 2d

A large fiberglass (?) sculpture of Big Bird

Don’t you dare sit on his lap you filthy peasant

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