Alex Wild
@alexwild.bsky.social
Pinned
My best photographs of 2025, a short thread.
A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.
A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.
Great new paper!
Many stinging wasps, bees, and ants have controlled the sex of their developing eggs for millions of year using an ancient segment of their genome- always the same segment- but what's weird is, *the exact DNA sequence of that segment doesn't seem to matter*.
Many stinging wasps, bees, and ants have controlled the sex of their developing eggs for millions of year using an ancient segment of their genome- always the same segment- but what's weird is, *the exact DNA sequence of that segment doesn't seem to matter*.
New work from @miyapan.bsky.social and our team, bringing ant, bee, and wasp labs together. @chuanxinyu.bsky.social shows that the ANTSR locus we discovered in ants has determined sex for 150+ My across bees and stinging wasps 🐜🐝, despite virtually no sequence conservation 😮 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
January 6, 2026 at 3:11 AM
Great new paper!
Many stinging wasps, bees, and ants have controlled the sex of their developing eggs for millions of year using an ancient segment of their genome- always the same segment- but what's weird is, *the exact DNA sequence of that segment doesn't seem to matter*.
Many stinging wasps, bees, and ants have controlled the sex of their developing eggs for millions of year using an ancient segment of their genome- always the same segment- but what's weird is, *the exact DNA sequence of that segment doesn't seem to matter*.
Sliced a bagel. With my thumb in the hole.
What's the most ridiculous way you ever hurt yourself? I got out of the tub, skidded in water and tripped over the toilet. Ankle sprain.
😅
😅
January 6, 2026 at 12:19 AM
Sliced a bagel. With my thumb in the hole.
Endorse. The Republican plan to “Make America Healthy Again” is literally to kill people they perceive as weak or genetically inferior, leaving just “the healthy”
MAHA is just Nazism, and Republican rule will result in the intentional killings of vast numbers of innocent people.
MAHA is just Nazism, and Republican rule will result in the intentional killings of vast numbers of innocent people.
Children will die with RFK Jr.'s new vaccine recommendations. We're NOT doing the "experts disagree" game. The US vaccine schedule was painstakingly constructed through a deep & thorough process by experts with unquestionable expertise. This is policy by fiat. It is pre-meditated murder. 1/
January 5, 2026 at 11:55 PM
Endorse. The Republican plan to “Make America Healthy Again” is literally to kill people they perceive as weak or genetically inferior, leaving just “the healthy”
MAHA is just Nazism, and Republican rule will result in the intentional killings of vast numbers of innocent people.
MAHA is just Nazism, and Republican rule will result in the intentional killings of vast numbers of innocent people.
Silken cocoons in a Lasius nearcticus ant brood nest. Western New York.
January 5, 2026 at 11:39 PM
Silken cocoons in a Lasius nearcticus ant brood nest. Western New York.
Reposted by Alex Wild
posting birds so we don't get fined
January 5, 2026 at 10:46 PM
posting birds so we don't get fined
Mark Kelly should only have his pension stripped for phone spam violations, honestly
January 5, 2026 at 10:24 PM
Mark Kelly should only have his pension stripped for phone spam violations, honestly
Speaking as a professional biologist, there is no greater sign of incoming pigheaded movement bigotry than someone attempting to apply the term "biological sex" in the context of human gender fluidity.
The term is meaningless, biologically speaking, and tautological.
The term is meaningless, biologically speaking, and tautological.
January 5, 2026 at 8:51 PM
Speaking as a professional biologist, there is no greater sign of incoming pigheaded movement bigotry than someone attempting to apply the term "biological sex" in the context of human gender fluidity.
The term is meaningless, biologically speaking, and tautological.
The term is meaningless, biologically speaking, and tautological.
Reposted by Alex Wild
Some big diffs between citizen science observations (from iNaturalist) and specimen records (from digitised museum collections) - cit. sci records biased towards large inverts & exotic spp. Great MSc project with recommendations 🌏🧪@nzhymenoptera.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
January 5, 2026 at 12:18 AM
Some big diffs between citizen science observations (from iNaturalist) and specimen records (from digitised museum collections) - cit. sci records biased towards large inverts & exotic spp. Great MSc project with recommendations 🌏🧪@nzhymenoptera.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
A gallery of treehoppers, a delightful lineage of sap-feeding, singing insects with a bizarre assortment of body ornaments.
Treehoppers: Membracidae & Aetalionidae - Alex Wild
A gallery of treehoppers, a specialized lineage of leafhoppers with highly modified pronota.
www.alexanderwild.com
January 5, 2026 at 1:32 PM
A gallery of treehoppers, a delightful lineage of sap-feeding, singing insects with a bizarre assortment of body ornaments.
I wake up to discover South Korea has mounted a war against me personally.
South Korea’s president has taken up the fight against hair loss, and his campaign is parting the looks-obsessed country right down the middle.
South Korea’s President Identifies a New Enemy: Baldness
Leader likens hair loss to a ‘matter of survival’ and is pushing for government support. The debate has parted the country down the middle.
on.wsj.com
January 5, 2026 at 12:46 PM
I wake up to discover South Korea has mounted a war against me personally.
This isn’t the 1970s. Latin America is much wealthier and better connected, and the United States relatively weaker. The United States is not going to win a war of expansion.
January 5, 2026 at 3:39 AM
This isn’t the 1970s. Latin America is much wealthier and better connected, and the United States relatively weaker. The United States is not going to win a war of expansion.
The rest of the world ought have a coordinated, anti-U.S. sanctions package queued up for the next time the regime tries something.
Trump: We have a very sick neighbor. That’s Venezuela. Colombia is very sick too.
Reporter: So there will be an operation by the US in Colombia?
Trump: Sounds good to me
Reporter: So there will be an operation by the US in Colombia?
Trump: Sounds good to me
January 5, 2026 at 2:29 AM
The rest of the world ought have a coordinated, anti-U.S. sanctions package queued up for the next time the regime tries something.
Reposted by Alex Wild
The paper that buried the leak about the Venezuela mission vs the publication that didn’t.
January 5, 2026 at 12:57 AM
The paper that buried the leak about the Venezuela mission vs the publication that didn’t.
Reposted by Alex Wild
Biologist kidnapped in Mexico news.mongabay.com/short-articl... 🧪🌎
Biologist kidnapped in Mexico
In the mountains of central Veracruz, scientific work is rarely abstract. It means walking narrow paths through cloud forest, speaking patiently with communities, and learning to read landscapes that…
news.mongabay.com
January 4, 2026 at 9:16 PM
Biologist kidnapped in Mexico news.mongabay.com/short-articl... 🧪🌎
He's trying to operate a protection racket on Venezuela, is the most accurate way of looking at this.
January 4, 2026 at 4:24 PM
He's trying to operate a protection racket on Venezuela, is the most accurate way of looking at this.
Reposted by Alex Wild
Austin should have an NFL team and that team should be called The Grackles.
January 4, 2026 at 4:11 PM
Austin should have an NFL team and that team should be called The Grackles.
These Dems should be primaried. We have a dictator and we need a real opposition party, not a limp slouch of corruption noodles.
Some Democrats hate that their party is largely positioning itself in opposition to the operation that resulted in Maduro's capture.
"Everything Trump touches must be bad according to the base," one House Dem told @axios.com
Said another: "It looks weak." www.axios.com/2026/01/04/m...
"Everything Trump touches must be bad according to the base," one House Dem told @axios.com
Said another: "It looks weak." www.axios.com/2026/01/04/m...
"It looks weak": Some Democrats want their party to shut up and clap for Maduro's capture
"Everything Trump touches must be bad according to the base," fumed one House Democrat.
www.axios.com
January 4, 2026 at 3:34 PM
These Dems should be primaried. We have a dictator and we need a real opposition party, not a limp slouch of corruption noodles.
Reposted by Alex Wild
In other Hymenoptera macro size comparison news:
~3/4" Sweat Bee so sweet and teeny...
...then there's the chalcid wasp following her...
#inverts #becurious
~3/4" Sweat Bee so sweet and teeny...
...then there's the chalcid wasp following her...
#inverts #becurious
January 4, 2026 at 2:46 PM
In other Hymenoptera macro size comparison news:
~3/4" Sweat Bee so sweet and teeny...
...then there's the chalcid wasp following her...
#inverts #becurious
~3/4" Sweat Bee so sweet and teeny...
...then there's the chalcid wasp following her...
#inverts #becurious
One of our local Texas mothboys makes it big overseas.
First report of the invasive pest species Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Eastern Europe
Free download: doi.org/10.18476/202...
#pest #moth @braconidae-ua.bsky.social @smnstuttgart.bsky.social @bioone.bsky.social
Free download: doi.org/10.18476/202...
#pest #moth @braconidae-ua.bsky.social @smnstuttgart.bsky.social @bioone.bsky.social
January 4, 2026 at 2:37 PM
One of our local Texas mothboys makes it big overseas.
Discerning a sense of size from macro photographs is hard. Camponotus intrepidus, for example, is one of Australia’s largest sugar ants at slightly under an inch long.
But did you see the little Pheidole ant at her heels?
But did you see the little Pheidole ant at her heels?
January 4, 2026 at 2:16 PM
Discerning a sense of size from macro photographs is hard. Camponotus intrepidus, for example, is one of Australia’s largest sugar ants at slightly under an inch long.
But did you see the little Pheidole ant at her heels?
But did you see the little Pheidole ant at her heels?
Screwworm is getting closer.
Mexican officials with the National Service of Agro-Alimentary Health, Safety, and Quality (SENAISCA) have confirmed New World screwworm (NWS) was identified at the end of December in a six-day-old calf in Mexican state of Tamaulipas — 197 miles from the border.
Read More👉 ebx.sh/mkHEAQ
Read More👉 ebx.sh/mkHEAQ
January 4, 2026 at 2:04 PM
Screwworm is getting closer.
Reposted by Alex Wild
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH I finally found another Attidops nickersoni! 😍 Found the first 2 years ago, had been looking ever since with no luck. These silly tiny children like longleaf pine bark, or, in my 2 experiences, cypress bark. Just little flat stripy children 🤎
#EmotionalSupportSpood 🧪
#EmotionalSupportSpood 🧪
January 4, 2026 at 12:23 AM
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH I finally found another Attidops nickersoni! 😍 Found the first 2 years ago, had been looking ever since with no luck. These silly tiny children like longleaf pine bark, or, in my 2 experiences, cypress bark. Just little flat stripy children 🤎
#EmotionalSupportSpood 🧪
#EmotionalSupportSpood 🧪
Gonna need a new vice since I'm drinking less these days. What's good right now?
January 4, 2026 at 1:32 AM
Gonna need a new vice since I'm drinking less these days. What's good right now?
Not the biggest issue, but I feel bad for the International Relations faculty who have to rework their syllabi again.
January 4, 2026 at 12:40 AM
Not the biggest issue, but I feel bad for the International Relations faculty who have to rework their syllabi again.
It's not clear we've even broken Venezuela. We kidnapped the president and left his regime largely intact, so... why? For Trump's social media content?
Anyone alive in 2002-2004 should remember the Pottery Barn theory of regime change: If you break it, you buy it.
Trump and Co. have broken Venezuela.
They own all the consequences that follow.
Trump and Co. have broken Venezuela.
They own all the consequences that follow.
“.. There is no evidence that anyone on the Trump team has thought about what will happen tomorrow, or next week, or next year ..
“.. we’re not even 24 hours into this .. Decades later, we’re still dealing with the aftermath in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
fallows.substack.com/p/blind-into...
“.. we’re not even 24 hours into this .. Decades later, we’re still dealing with the aftermath in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
fallows.substack.com/p/blind-into...
January 3, 2026 at 11:44 PM
It's not clear we've even broken Venezuela. We kidnapped the president and left his regime largely intact, so... why? For Trump's social media content?