Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

beespeaker @loriweidenhammer.ca · 13h

It was so lovely to see you!!!! Thank you for your visit! ❤️

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JBtheExplorer🎃 | Native Plant Gardener (WI) @jbtheexplorer.bsky.social · 2d

Just a reminder: Don't cut your stems to the ground! Bees need them! I do cut stems back a bit, but I leave them standing around 1' to 2' tall. In spring, bees will lay eggs in them. I took these photos a few years back on a warm spring day.

#nativeplants #bees #nativegarden #pollinators

A small carpenter bee realizing that the hollow stem it was intending on entering is already occupied.

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Tom Astle @tjalamont.bsky.social · 2d

For #Arachtober, here is a spider that's not a spider. It's Petrophila jaliscalis, a jumping-spider-mimicking moth - see the face-on spider pattern, with orange legs and sparkly dark eyes? I love finding these - I think they breed in my small goldfish pond, because the caterpillars are aquatic. 🌿🐙

A macro photo of a moth, seen from the side, on brown bark. The moth has white wings with lots of dark speckles, and a pattern of four orange vertical stripes, plus a row of dark spots above, with reflective scales in the centers. The effect creates a pattern that looks like a jumping spider seen face-on; the orange stripes mimic legs, and the dark spots mimic a jumping spider's row of large eyes.

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beespeaker @loriweidenhammer.ca · 2d

I am grateful for the beautiful little pears given to me by my neighbour. I am making ginger cardamom pear butter with them today. Grating the pears and stirring the bubbling pot is a sweet, soulful meditation. What are your favourite pear recipes?

A grouping of pears on a table with a mason jar.

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Kathy Keatley Garvey @bugsrule.bsky.social · 2d

Don't miss UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar by #ucdavis researcher Felicity Muth. Seminar on "What Are Bees Thinking? Cognition in Captive and Wild Bumble Bees" at 12:10 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 15, 122 Briggs Hall. Also on Zoom.

ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squ...

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Gray @grays.art · 3d

Female Two-spotted longhorn bee
(Melissodes bimaculatus)

explored a vacant lot by the sea between two large homes in Cape Coral a few days ago, overcast & rainy, startled a burrowing owl & found a familiar subject.

#macroMonday #EastCoastKin #macroPhotography #macro #photography #pollinators #bees

Dangling from her mandibles by a blade of grass.

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Michael Russell @mrussellphoto.bsky.social · 3d

#SilentSunday

A night photograph of a viewing tower next to a marsh, with almost the entire sky lit up by green and red aurora borealis. I found this more remarkable as I was facing south, and even the light pollution from Vancouver didn't do much to diminish the light show.

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Wendy Miller @burrowingowl.bsky.social · 3d

Moist owlettes. 🪶

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Get To Know Nature @gettoknownature.bsky.social · 4d

Spring peepers battling! Teeny tiny froglets! A great froggie soundtrack! Because frogs seem to be having a moment here in the US.

#herps 🌿 #frogs

My Favorite Frog and Toad Encounters

YouTube video by Get To Know Nature

m.youtube.com

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Wendy Miller @burrowingowl.bsky.social · 6d

New burrowing owl behavior for me today-- taking a bath in the rain! So cool! 🪶

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J.D. Ho @nematode.bsky.social · 12d

Lots of these in the garden rn. They love fennel!

Yellow and green and black swallowtail caterpillar on frilly fennel stalk

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beespeaker @loriweidenhammer.ca · 5d

www.instagram.com/p/DOOvfWHD99d/

Login • Instagram

Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

www.instagram.com

beespeaker @loriweidenhammer.ca · 5d

I'm such a big fan of her work.

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🌴 Scott Zona, Ph.D. 🌴 @scottzona.bsky.social · 9d

In the 1980s, E. Stiles hypothesized that plants advertise fruit with a contrasting foliar “flag.” I’ve seen this phenomenon in cultivated Berberis, like this B. aquifolium (📷: Alicia CCBYNC4). Some experiments support the hypothesis; some don’t. 🤷‍♂️ #dispersal #Berberidaceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Photo of leafy shoots bearing blue berries. A leaf subtending a cluster of berries has turned bright coppery red.

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Cri 🕊🐝🐜📝🎭⚽😷 @crawlieswithcri.bsky.social · 8d

🚨 Floof Peep Alert! 🚨

#birds #becurious 🪶

photo of an american goldfinch in winter plumage sitting on a small maple branch with one green but just beginning to turn yellow leaf to their left. the finch is facing the camera and their feathers are floofed out.

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beespeaker @loriweidenhammer.ca · 11d

Today's the day! Hope to see you at City Farmer in Vancouver this afternoon, October 4 from 1-3 pm. I'll bee selling books for $30 each and of course, I'd bee happy to sign them for you!

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Darren Kirby @dragonbyte.ca · 22d

🐝🐝🐝

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation @xercessociety.bsky.social · 22d

Where do bumble bees build their homes? Where do they spend the winter? And how do you protect bumble bees if their nests * overwintering sites are almost impossible to find? Join us to get all the answers! 🐝
🗓️Oct 2 at 10am PT / 1pm ET
🔗Register for this free event: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

“The Secret Lives of Bumble Bees: Nesting and Overwintering” A bumble bee emerging from its burrow in the ground.

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beespeaker @loriweidenhammer.ca · 20d

Maybe tiger beetles. www.insectsofalberta.com/tigerbeetles...

Insects of Alberta - Tiger Beetles

Insects of Alberta - Index page for Tiger Beetles

www.insectsofalberta.com

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Ash Whiffin @ashwhiffin.bsky.social · 22d

Shhhh 🤫

*whispers* the moth meeting is in progress. They have very serious business to discuss.

Three Canary-shouldered thorn moths rest in a circle on my fingers, with heads all facing inwards.

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Scaryanne Denton 🎃🧡 @mariannedenton.bsky.social · 24d

Friends,

Your input, pls? Our local county parks is having an Autumn Photo event.

I’m definitely submitting this Aspen Quote Post, but I want to submit a skipper pic, too (bc bugs).

The purple alfalfa or yellow rabbitbrush pic but titled “Skipper’s Last Sip.”

Your thoughts?

A skipper butterfly on a purple alfalfa flower. The skipper is a golden brown and its wings are worn.

A skipper butterfly on a yellow rabbitbrush. The skipper is a golden brown and its proboscis is sipping nectar from the flowers.

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Danae Wolfe | Chasing Bugs @chasingbugs.com · 22d

Entomologist 1: Hmm, what should we name this one?

Entomologist 2: Well, its red spots make it look as though it’s been stabbed. Twice.

Entomologist 1: Perfect, we’ll call it the twice-stabbed lady beetle.

A round black beetle with two prominent red spots rests on a brown branch against a dark background.

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Melissa McMasters @melissamactn.bsky.social · 24d

What a treat to watch this leafcutter bee bring the petals of a blanketflower back to line her nest, transforming a drainage hole into its own kind of bloom.
#bees #Inverts

A bee with a black-and-white striped abdomen, with yellow pollen stuck to the underside, carries a bright red flower petal into a small hole in a concrete wall that she has already lined with many other petals.

The bee emerges from the nest, which looks like the top of a flower that has been stuck into the small drainage hole.

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beespeaker @loriweidenhammer.ca · 23d

Nice! If you're in iNat, I have a project this fits. www.inaturalist.org/projects/meg...

Megachile using flower petals as nesting material

To collect observations of Megachile cutting petals to use as nesting material and identify the plant and ID the bee if possible.

www.inaturalist.org

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jtkindt.bsky.social @jtkindt.bsky.social · 24d

Never noticed how beautiful Woodland Lettuce (Lactuca floridana) flowers are, mostly cause the buds close up before my afternoon nature walk time.

Made especially pretty by lots of small metallic blue carpenter bees doing #bee things. #inverts #insects #nativeplants #bugsex #macrophotography

A flower with many pale purple petals and darker purple stamens tipped with snow-like pollen.

Pale purple flower with deep purple stamens that end in curlicues coated with white pollen. A metallic blue bee is face down in the flower.

Metallic blue bees mating on the edge of a pale purple flower. The male is wrapped around the female’s abdomen, the female is bend deeply between abdomen and thorax and has mid and hind legs raised above her body.

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Rob 🇨🇦 @rockinbones.bsky.social · Sep 14

#SundayYellow #Inverts #Bees 🐝

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