Jess Marsh
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jessmarsh.bsky.social
Jess Marsh
@jessmarsh.bsky.social
1.5K followers 1.4K following 51 posts
Researcher Uni of Adelaide. Arachnology, taxonomy, conservation. Caves + cave biodiversity. Mum, hiker, ally. She / her.

Co-founder Invertebrates Australia, Councillor Biodiversity Council, Co-chair IUCN Australia Species Specialist Group.
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jessmarsh.bsky.social
Jess Marsh @jessmarsh.bsky.social · Dec 9
📣New paper📣

We estimate the number of extinctions of Australian #invertebrates, plus the ongoing #extinction rate … Both figures are far higher than those currently recognised, pointing to alarming gaps in #conservation of an important area of #biodiversity
🪳🕷️🐌🪰🪲🪱
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
This is the way the world ends; not with a bang but a whimper: Estimating the number and ongoing rate of extinctions of Australian non-marine invertebrates | Cambridge Prisms: Extinction | Cambridge C...
This is the way the world ends; not with a bang but a whimper: Estimating the number and ongoing rate of extinctions of Australian non-marine invertebrates - Volume 2
www.cambridge.org
jessmarsh.bsky.social
Hugely excited for our work on the Nullarbor Caves to be featured on the ever excellent First Dog on the Moon. Oh yeah...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Did you know that there are huge caves full of weirdy bugs and ancient life right under the Nullarbor desert? | First Dog on the Moon
We simply don’t know even a fraction of what is in them
www.theguardian.com
June 30, 2025 at 8:43 AM
jessmarsh.bsky.social
Just back from surveys of #caves of the Nullarbor, Western Australia, land of the Mirning People.

🖤 amazing caves
🕷️ amazing cave #invertebrates
✨ hugely exciting finds

The best start to my ARC Industry Fellowship.

👀 Watch. This. Space 👀
#biodiversity #conservation #ozinverts

📸 Dr Steve Milner
A woman (me!!) in dusty overalls standing next to the entrance of a cave, wearing a green helmet, a harness and gear for rope work.
May 8, 2025 at 9:06 AM
jessmarsh.bsky.social
A brief peak at my home for the last three weeks. Surveying cave-adapted invertebrates of the beautiful and rugged caves of the Nullarbor plain, Western Australia. Some REALLY exciting finds. Stand by for updates #caves #invertebrates #troglobites #spiders #biodiversity
A vast treeless landscape, with a small, limestone outcrop in the centre, containing the entrance to a large cave
May 4, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
apsciencebylyn.bsky.social
Sand grains as big as her head ❤️
The tiny red nugget wasp, in white sand, individual grains like boulders around her
April 3, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
apsciencebylyn.bsky.social
It's officially spring up here because there are tiny Metaphycus nugget wasps in the savannah grasses again and I am happy 🥹
#EmotionalSupportWasps
Tiny bright red stubby wasp with tiny wing stubs and big grey eyes with false pupils peering. She has thick red antennae with white tips, and she taps them on the ground rapidly as she runs.
March 15, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
theguardian.com
Worm-like creature with ‘dark secret’ wins New Zealand bug of the year
Worm-like creature with ‘dark secret’ wins New Zealand bug of the year
Velvet worms have rows of pudgy legs, skin speckled like a galaxy and dissolve their prey with sticky goo An ancient gummy-looking worm-like creature with a vicious hunting method that involves projecting sticky goo from its head has been crowned New…
www.theguardian.com
February 20, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
rebeccarhelm.bsky.social
Scientists first collected a pig butt worm from the dark ocean depths near Monterey, California. The size of marbles, pigbutts are a near complete mystery. Officially described in 2007, scientists aren’t even sure if the pigbutt form is an adult, or just a very very awkward adolescent stage.
A very pig butt looking round marble like animal that is pink. Photo by MBARI. The “front” of a pig butt worm showing tentacles and a round body. Image by MBARI. The bottom of a pig butt worm showing it’s odd bilateral butt cheeks. Images by MBARI
February 12, 2025 at 7:52 PM
jessmarsh.bsky.social
Invertebrate species of the year, for the WHOLE world 🌍

… I know which species I’d choose. It has the name, it has the looks, it has the on-the-brink-of-extinction need for awareness…

(Come on little #kangarooIslandAssassinSpider 🕷️💪)
Nominate your invertebrate species of the year
We’re asking readers from around the world to nominate their favourite spineless species for our second Invertebrate of the Year competition
www.theguardian.com
February 13, 2025 at 4:06 AM
jessmarsh.bsky.social
This is another very cool invertebrate

#biodiversity #insects
alexwild.bsky.social Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · Nov 10
The wasp mantisfly, Climaciella brunnea, is not a wasp, a mantis, or a fly. It is instead a type of spider-eating lacewing that keeps itself safe by looking like it has a painful sting, which is does not.

Evolution continues to be marvelous. 🧪 #Entomology
Side view photograph of an oddly proportioned reddish brown insect with yellow stripes standing alert on the end of a stick against a blurred natural background.
February 10, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
apsciencebylyn.bsky.social
Anthony Davis spood
(Mr Angry UniBrow)
Small bronze-y jumping spider boy on a palmetto frond, with markings like angry eyebrows (more of a unibrow on this little guy), peering up at you shyly
February 10, 2025 at 5:01 AM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
frankashwood.bsky.social
🚨BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!🚨

I know everything is a lot right now, but this is the LAST WEEK of Bug of the Year, and team velvet worm are hot on our heels!

Please VOTE NOW to make Giant Springtails victorious!

bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-here-20...

IF WE WIN, I WILL GET A GIANT SPRINGTAIL TATTOO!!
A photograph of a giant springtail viewed from above, crawling on a NZ one dollar coin. The springtail is blue with yellow spines, and in length is only about half the width of the coin.
February 10, 2025 at 7:20 AM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
mhedin.bsky.social
welcome to the world new spider genus Siskiyu. you've been lurking in the dark, magical woods of far northern California for millenia. Now the humans have finally gotten around to telling your story, at least in part

this research was funded by the NSF

OA here

zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1402...
a pale, elegant long-legged spider, with whispy silk, under a stone
February 7, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
tjalamont.bsky.social
One more for the Year of the Snake, plus #TBT. It's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken, from ten years ago in Borneo, a gorgeous little snake called an eight-striped kukri (Oligodon octolineatus). I have a large print of it on my home office wall and it makes me happy to see every day. 🐙 📷 🐍
A photo looking down at a colorful snake coiled up atop a palm-like plant frond. The snake is coiled in the upper third of the frame in a flat circle, and has a bright orange dorsal stripe and white side stripes against a glossy dark brown background. The snake's curled shape contrasts with the straight central rib of the plant (running diagonally up from the lower left) and its also-straight, perpendicular frond branches.
January 30, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
tjalamont.bsky.social
One more from my Borneo archives, because frankly, living in the past seems like a good idea right now. See the grasshopper? Look for the "holes" in the leaf - they're actually solid but transparent exoskeleton. I've shared this before elsewhere, but I don't think here. Even if, worth a re-post. 🐙🌿📷
A photo of what at first looks like a pile of dead brown leaves, but upon closer inspection is a pile of dead brown leaves and a grasshopper that is astonishingly camouflaged as a dead brown leaf. Its body is flattened with a crest to create the leaf shape; the end of the wings even has a projection that looks like the leaf stem. The abdomen tip curls up to meet it to help the deception. The grasshopper has markings that look like leaf veins, and a couple of what look like rotted holes in a leaf, but which are actually clear spots in the exoskeleton to create this illusion.
February 5, 2025 at 12:21 AM
jessmarsh.bsky.social
The Grampians National Park is an important area for biodiversity. And it is burning.

Many species have been impacted, but some species have had their whole know range burnt. The Grampians Assassin Spider, Zephyrarchaea grayi is one of these.

Extinct? Possibly.

#biodiversity #arachnids #fire
A map showing the extent of fire in the Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia. Most of the park is marked in yellow and red colouring, indicating it has burnt, or is at risk from burning.
February 2, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
drjackbrown.bsky.social
February 1, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
chasingbugs.com
When you’re willing to move slowly through the world, you’ll find amazing things. I call this Birth of an Assassin. #bugsky
A spindly legged white assassin bug nymph emerges from a brown egg case on a green leaf.
January 31, 2025 at 3:03 AM
jessmarsh.bsky.social
Unknown to me, a school student chose to write a poem on one of the species that I have fought to conserve.

Convincing people that spiders are worthy of conservation often feels an uphill battle.

This feels a little bit like a win 🥹💙

#australia #arachnids #biodiversity #poetry
Kangaroo Island Assassin Spider
Australian poems by Australian poets are at the heart of Red Room Poetry an organisation devoted to creating, publishing and promoting the reading and writing of great new work.
redroompoetry.org
January 31, 2025 at 5:41 AM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
chasingbugs.com
Little bug. Big munch.
Small green sawfly larvae chews large squiggly hole in green leaf.
January 28, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
sderkarabetian.bsky.social
Opilioacarida! Mites that kind of look like Opiliones (hence the name). Found all over tropical and subtropical habitats worldwide, poorly studied. These were the first I've ever seen alive! From south of La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. This is Neocarus bajacalifornicus.
A macro photo of a small mite, facing right. The body color is light grey. Its front pair of legs are elongate and pointing forward like antennae. It is walking on a rock.
March 2, 2024 at 3:26 PM
jessmarsh.bsky.social
The beauty of spider webs and water droplets
mhedin.bsky.social Marshal Hedin @mhedin.bsky.social · Jan 17
a cave spider, Typhlonesticus, in a very cave-spidery setting

from a damp, December lava tube in far northern CA

I so, so, so wish that I had spent more time photographing the amazing water droplets on the web. although i recall the gentlest breath causing the entire web to ebb & flow.
dainty orangish spider in web, web itself covered with dew, forming little water droplets along the webbing. in a darker place, a cave, lit by camera flash
January 19, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
frankashwood.bsky.social
Do you need a New Year’s resolution that’s quick, free, easy to achieve and makes a difference?

Then I’ve got one for you! Vote for Holacanthella in the Bug of the Year contest! You can vote from anywhere in the world, just follow this link! 🧪 #Invertebrate

bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz/vote-here-20...
A photo of a giant springtail, and invertebrate with a soft blue body and lots of yellow spines on its back.
January 1, 2025 at 4:17 AM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
hydaticus.bsky.social
Prokoenenia wheeleri, a micro-whipscorpion in the rarely seen arachnid order Palpigradi. Travis County, Texas

#nature #photography #arachnids #invertebrates
December 27, 2024 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
ecologian.bsky.social
Seems we have enough Australian Entomology / other insect people to start a starter pack. Who have I missed?
go.bsky.app/8d9RtMC
November 17, 2024 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Jess Marsh
danielkronauer.bsky.social
@NatGeo just published an article about mound-building Formica wood ants, featuring a series of spectacular photographs by Ingo Arndt:
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Here is Ingo’s winning wood ant photo from @NHM_WPY last year:
January 15, 2025 at 7:49 PM