Colin Purrington
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colinpurrington.bsky.social
Colin Purrington
@colinpurrington.bsky.social
2.5K followers 490 following 2K posts
Nature pics and science. Swarthmore, PA, USA. https://colinpurrington.com
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colinpurrington.bsky.social
Some of the walnut husk maggot fly pupae I've collected in my back yard. Hoping that some will have resident Coptera, sleek black wasps in the Diapriidae that have a fondness for Tephritidae. #flies #wasps #diapriidae #walnuts #insects
Approximately 100 light-brown, rice-shaped, segmented puparia in the palm of my hand.
November 25, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
inaturalist.bsky.social
Sometimes the first thing nature makes you say is "what the heck is that?!" In this case, we're looking at a bunch of Jacobson's Giant Scale Insects (Icerya jacobsoni).

📷 beizi125 on iNaturalist
📍 China
🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
#ObservationOfTheDay
These insects (of which there are almost twenty gathered on the underside of a leaf) have oval, beige-colored central bodies with lots of white, spindly appendages growing off them. They are quite spectacular to behold.
November 24, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
timblor.bsky.social
More Greenland photos, featuring some geology. Scoresbysund has some fantastic exposures of columnar basalts, which are ~55 million years old (young for Greenland rocks!) related to flood basalts when the Atlantic was opening up. Fantastical shapes and fall tundra colors
Undulating columnar basalts Columnar basalts with some green and red plants. Cliffs of basalt with snow, a water fall, and an icy fiord
November 25, 2025 at 4:13 AM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
daisyowl.com
maybe i am going insane
November 24, 2025 at 6:49 PM
colinpurrington.bsky.social
I would pay a premium for a bag of macadamia nuts that wasn't full of rancid ones. Any tips on companies to order from? #macadamia #proteaceae #nuts #farming
November 24, 2025 at 9:09 PM
colinpurrington.bsky.social
Charles Darwin's draft title page for "An abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties Through Natural Selection." It was published on November 24, 1859, as "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."
Facsimile of a letter in cursive that is displayed under glass in dim light. Accompanied by the following exhibit text: Draft of title page for “On the Origin of Species,” sent with letter to Charles Lyell, March 28, 1859. Darwin sent this handwritten title page for On the Origin of Species to his friend Charles Lyell to ask his opinion of it. Darwin liked the phrase "natural selection" because it echoed "artificial selection" — a term that described what dog and pigeon breeders did when using controlled mating to produce desired traits. In his book, Darwin argued that nature (through natural selection) could do the same over millions of years. The final, full title for the first five editions of Darwin's now-famous book was On the Origin of Species through Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The term "Races" did not refer to human "races" but rather to what we would now call species (of both plants and animals). Beginning with the sixth edition, published in 1872, the title was simplified to The Origin of Species.
November 24, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
thequeso.bsky.social
Got the furnace serviced today and the guy asked about carbon monoxide detectors so it’s a good day to share my favorite reason for ensuring your CO detectors are fully functional as the winter approaches:
thequeso.bsky.social LAISSEZ LES BON QUESO ROULER @thequeso.bsky.social · Feb 28
Carbon monoxide is never funny, but one of my best friend’s CO alarm went off at about 11pm after a particularly cold OU-Texas weekend Saturday.

They had had their roof replaced and the vent of their HVAC was not reconnected to the outside air so when the heater kicked on CO just flooded the attic
November 24, 2025 at 4:44 PM
colinpurrington.bsky.social
In several days you'll likely be sitting next to an ignorant relative who is 100% convinced he knows the difference between a sweet potato and a yam. Here's my primer on the topic. #thanksgiving #sweetpotato #yam #botany 🍠 colinpurrington.com/yams-versus-...
The difference between sweet potatoes and yams » Colin Purrington's blog
Every year at Thanksgiving, families in the United States sit down to argue about politics and the difference between sweet potatoes and yams. This page details how to tell them apart and explains how...
colinpurrington.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
fungifirst.bsky.social
Though I’ve only encountered it a handful of times, the aborted form of the blushing rosette (Abortiporus biennis) is among my favorite fungi! These coral-like projections are not filled with basidiospores, but instead are filled with ellipsoid to subglobose asexual chlamydospores! #Mushrooms
November 23, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
dannygibson.bsky.social
Holly Parachute Fungi, Marasmius hudsonii - my first time catching up with this elusive little mushroom, and a cracker it is too

#mushrooms #mushroom #mycology #fubgifriends #fungi
November 23, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
tjalamont.bsky.social
Sunday Surfing in the photo archives - here's a giant shield bug (family Tessaratomidae) from Malaysian Borneo awhile back. These are larger than the typical stink bugs we see here in the U.S. They can spray a defensive chemical that not only smells unpleasant, but can damage skin. 🐙🌿 #Bugsky
A photo of a shield bug, seen from above, perched at the joint of two pieces of wood, painted a dull red. The bug is bright orange with metallic-green speckles on the shield over its thorax. The shield also has horns on each side which project out and forward. The wood pieces meet at an angle in the top of the frame; below them the background is black.
November 23, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
frankashwood.bsky.social
The cover art is finished for my new book and I LOVE IT!

This safari tour of the life in soil and what is means to us, is now available for pre-order as ebook, soft and hardcover in the UK and Commonwealth. Published in August next year (US date soon), I hope it'll entice everyone to love soil! 🧪🪱
A book cover featuring artwork of winding roots and soil animals, entitled 'THE WORLD BENEATH OUR FEET', with roots winding around the text.
November 20, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
xenomatt.bsky.social
A couple of pics of a pair from a blackwater dive in Balayan Bay, Anilao. I think this is a phyllosoma (the larval stage of a lobster) riding a purple-striped jelly which is really too small for it... ID very tentative in both cases though!

#MarineLife #Invertebrates 🦀🌿
A translucent, ten-legged crustacean on top of a jellyfish. The crustacean has very few visible features. The jellyfish has a few short, pale brown tentacles, and some purple organs are visible inside the bell. The pair are seen from underneath which makes it obvious that the crustacean is larger than the jellyfish it has commandeered for a ride. #UnderwaterPhotography #Macro #WildlifePhotography #Wildlife #Nature #NaturePhotography A translucent, ten-legged crustacean on top of a jellyfish. The crustacean has small hairs/spines on its legs but very few other visible features. The jellyfish has a few short, pale brown tentacles, and some purple organs are visible inside the bell. The two are about the same size which gives a very top-heavy appearance to the picture. #UnderwaterPhotography #Macro #WildlifePhotography #Wildlife #Nature #NaturePhotography
November 23, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
nickybay.bsky.social
Blind cave spiders~

This occurs due to the process of regressive evolution. In an environment without light, vision provides no advantage in finding prey or avoiding predators. The loss of their eyes means that energy and resources once used for eyes are instead allocated to other traits.
November 23, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
alexwild.bsky.social
The genus name for American harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex, means "bearded ant", and it refers to a basket of hairs on the underside of the head that helps these desert ants carry dry sand.

Monahans Sandhills State Park, Texas.
macro photograph of a large,slender light red ant standing alert on yellowish sand grains. The ant's antennae are lowered and its abdomen raised.
November 23, 2025 at 3:04 PM
colinpurrington.bsky.social
🐤📰: There's apparently a yellow-headed caracara in the USA. Per speculation on Facebook, maybe traveled to Wilmington, DE, via the banana-laden Chiquita Explorer from Honduras. One person said she saw it near the Blue Route / I95. Great pics on iNaturalist. #delco www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Yellow-headed Caracara (Daptrius chimachima)
Yellow-headed Caracara from Commerce St, Wilmington, DE, US on November 20, 2025 at 03:38 PM by Matt Felperin. Continuing 1st state record initially reported by Jeanette Sloper on 11/18. Moving aroun...
www.inaturalist.org
November 22, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
bertonemyia.bsky.social
Not a tiny bird's nest, this cute little mossy cup is the remains of a green lacewing cocoon!

If you've seen a crawling piece of fluff it's almost certainly one of these little trash monsters, hiding from predators & prey. Adults look like this: flic.kr/p/2jZaTAQ

#Chrysopidae
North Carolina, USA
A green oak leaf on a white background. On one of the lower left lobes there is a small open cup-like structure. Close up of a small, spherical, open cup-like structure covered in lichens and other debris, sitting on an oak leaf. Close up of a small, spherical, open cup-like structure covered in lichens and other debris, sitting on an oak leaf. A ball of fluffy debris with a head and legs poking out the front on a white background. You can see the long sickle-shaped mouthparts used to jab prey.
November 22, 2025 at 5:51 PM
colinpurrington.bsky.social
If you live in California, fresh figs may contain fig wasps. www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Common Fig Wasp (Blastophaga psenes)
Common Fig Wasp in July 2025 by Noriko Ito
www.inaturalist.org
November 22, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
norikonbuchan.bsky.social
Until recently @ymilesz.bsky.social taught me, I didn't know anything about the fascinating synbiotic relationship between fig trees and fig wasps. So I've been wanting to see their work in the wild, and found it on the last day of #September2025GallWeek !
www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Common Fig Wasp (Blastophaga psenes)
Common Fig Wasp from Tyler Island, Walnut Grove, CA, US on September 14, 2025 at 11:07 AM by Noriko Ito. On common fig Host observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/313985713 (Last pho...
www.inaturalist.org
September 15, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
norikonbuchan.bsky.social
Another species that is known to emerge in late fall in CA. Happy to meet her for the first time! www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Clustered Gall Wasp (Andricus brunneus)
Clustered Gall Wasp in November 2025 by Noriko Ito
www.inaturalist.org
November 22, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
alisonfisk.bsky.social
A very good boy! 🐾🐕😍

An amazing c. 3,400 year-old ancient Egyptian dog carved from ivory. This leaping dog opens and closes its mouth as if barking by using a lever below its chest.

The Met 📷 by me

#Archaeology
My photo shows a three quarter profile of an ancient Egyptian figurine of a leaping dog facing left. Carved from ivory, now a warm caramel brown colour with glossy surface. The dogs eyes are outlined in black, the ears are floppy, the mouth is slightly ajar (the inside of the mouth is painted red - not sen in my photo). The front and back legs are outstretched as if running at full speed. A lever under the dog’s chest opens and closes the mouth so that the dog looks as if it’s barking. Dimensions: L 18.2 cm × H 6.1 cm × W 3.6 cm. Dated to Late Dynasty I8, I400-I350 BC, reign of Amenhotep III who was Tutankhamun’s grandfather. The dog is mounted on a thin metal rod in a display case. In the background in the same display case is a ‘galloping’ brown horse, which is the handle of an ancient Egyptian fly whisk or light whip.
November 22, 2025 at 9:37 AM
colinpurrington.bsky.social
Puparium of a walnut husk maggot fly (Rhagoletis suavis), backlit to show innards. Was wondering whether I could find parasitized ones but I don't think the light is strong enough. #diptera #flies #tephritidae #coptera
Pupa the size of a grain of barley, glowing slightly from within and revealing the outlines of hundreds of small cells and a darker branching pattern that might be the circulatory system of the metamorphosing fly.
November 21, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
tanukisrevenge.bsky.social
Some frosty bird nest for #FungiFriday
Tiny bird nest fungi, complete with “eggs” gather a coating of morning frost
November 21, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
tjalamont.bsky.social
--pigment on their eyes & mandibles. Why? My guess is, if you think about it, a transparent eye can't trap light, so to be useful it needs pigment. As for mandibles, they need to be tough enough to bite food (one here is already nibbling its empty eggshell) and melanin hardens (sclerotizes) them.
A macro photo of just-hatched, nearly transparent earwig babies, along with several still-unhatched eggs. The only pigment on the babies is in their compound eyes and mandibles, which can even be seen through the shells of the eggs that are yet to hatch.
November 20, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
tjalamont.bsky.social
#Bugsky 🐙🌿 Who wants another baby earwig update? Everyone? Thought so. The babies are now two days old and slightly darker than when they hatched. Mama is guarding them and will stay on the job until their second molt. Btw, in the earlier post, the newly-hatched babies only had--
A macro photo of a mother earwig guarding a cluster of her tiny, pale babies, all of them on damp earth.
November 20, 2025 at 5:45 PM