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tjalamont.bsky.social
Tom Astle
@tjalamont.bsky.social
43K followers 2.1K following 2.4K posts
Writer & nature photographer, especially macro photography of arthropods. Desert Tortoise conservation advocate. Fan of California, Montana, the rest of the planet. Photo website: https://www.tomastlephotography.com/
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Reposted by Tom Astle
mhedin.bsky.social
this NPR write-up includes one of our 2025 new spider species!

www.npr.org/2025/12/31/n....
Meet five new species discovered in 2025
A bumpy snailfish, Andean mouse opossum and ancient sea cow were just some of the many species described in 2025.
www.npr.org
January 5, 2026 at 4:18 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
Here's an early-instar ladybug larva in my rain-soaked backyard this morning. I like these spiky little aphid-eaters, but what I really like in this photo are the nodes on the manzanita plant, which look like creepy little ghoul fingers 🧟‍♂️
🐙🌿 #bugsky
A macro photo of a ladybug larva, which is a spiky-backed, orange-and-black critter with black legs. The green fuzzy stem the larva is clinging to has little branching nodes which look like green fingertips with long, pointy, orange nails.
January 4, 2026 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
bugeric.bsky.social
Birds are easy. Share your first *living* arthropod of the year. Please don’t dig for one, disturbing its diapause or habitat. My first was a small midge (Chironomidae) on the fence in our backyard. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA a few minutes ago. #bugsky #insect
Tiny, slender fly with grayish wings folded roof-like over its back, and long, slender legs. Sitting on wooden fence, stained with green algae.
January 1, 2026 at 7:42 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
I have updated my Lightroom watermarks to 2026 and changed the copyright to 2026 in my camera’s metadata settings. That’s my work for the new year sorted. Time for a nap.
January 1, 2026 at 7:43 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
25 for '25 – 🧵 of some favorite photos from the year, some picked for the quality of the photo, some for the quality of the memory, some for both. Cheers: 🌿🐙🐸📷

First up, here's the lone phone pic of the bunch, a one-handed shot of a European mantis taking flight from my fingertip (Montana)
A phone picture of a green mantis about to take flight from a fingertip. The background is a fall-color meadow, distant mountains, and orange-tinted clouds at sunset.
January 1, 2026 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by Tom Astle
photosteve.bsky.social
I think this is my favorite single photo from 2025. I’m not sure exactly why but I think it’s because of how casual the Bobcat looks.

(Bobcat, August 2025)

#mammals #cats #2025recap
A bobcat walking along a dirt path, looking to the side
December 30, 2025 at 7:49 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
These are all fantastic - I especially love the hornworm and the spider ant 🐜
alexwild.bsky.social Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 5d
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.
In middle of a graceful, fibonacci-curved spring tomato leaf sits a large green caterpillar in side view, its front curled as if in prayer, in an ethereal soft light, slightly backlit.
December 31, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
chuck4242.bsky.social
The tenth photo in my 25 for '25 series, a Snapping Turtle hatchling.

#Turtles #Animals #Nature #Wildlife #Nature #Photography #PhotographersUnited #Photo #EastCoastKin #WildlifePhotography
A Snapping Turtle hatchling stares directly at the camera.
December 30, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
alexwild.bsky.social
Not the primary purpose of our Australia trip, but I did take some photos and have been uploading to my recents gallery:
Recent - Alex Wild
Alex's most recent photographs.
www.alexanderwild.com
December 31, 2025 at 3:09 AM
Reposted by Tom Astle
apsciencebylyn.bsky.social
Galaxy Spood 🌌
#InverteFest
There's a tiny Micaria species of ground spider which looks like a galaxy full of stars and I love them 🖤
Miniscule leggy ant-like spider who's iridescent dark purple all over with sparse bright scales like stars
December 31, 2025 at 1:53 AM
tjalamont.bsky.social
My daughter gave me a carnivorous plant for Christmas and I love it. (And she even made the ceramic pot.) It’s a tropical pitcher plant, Nepenthes spectabilis. Bugs are attracted to the pitchers, fall in and drown, and are dissolved by digestive enzymes. So cool. 🪰💀
A carnivorous plant called a pitcher plant, in a small dark red ceramic pot, sitting on a wooden table with a window in the background. The plant is reddish and has vase-like hollow pitchers that are pale greenish yellow with red speckles.
December 28, 2025 at 7:04 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
A break in the rain

Photos taken in my backyard this morning using a 1964 lens attached with an adapter to my modern camera. If you care to look closer, one photo has a bug, and another has evidence of where a bug was busy. 📷
A photo, vertical orientation and with very shallow depth of field, of a green, raindrop-covered, heart-shaped leaf, with a yellow leaf behind it. The out of focus background is fairly dark but shows bits of green and yellow from other leaves. A photo with very shallow depth of field of a thin, bare, forked twig with a few raindrops hanging intermittently along it. Only a portion of the horizontal twig and two of the raindrops are in focus. The out of focus background is fairly dark below, but is bright in the the upper third with circles of light showing through the leaves. A photo of a rain-covered orange hanging on a tree, surrounded by green leaves. The photo has very shallow depth of field, and the out of focus background shows circles of light shining through the greenery, and some bits of color from other oranges on the tree. A close look at the orange reveals a tiny, long-legged fly roosting on it. A photo with very shallow depth of field, of two wet, heart-shaped leaves on thin bare stems. One leaf is yellow and the other is greenish-yellow and shows circular divots along the edge, evidence of a busy leafcutter bee. From lower left to upper right, the out of focus background fades from light to dark.
December 26, 2025 at 8:02 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
Merry Christmas. May you have a day as happy as I did way back when I got the present ever. (For an explanation of the present, see alt text) 🪲🐙🕷️🦎
A photo from the 1960s of a boy in a yellow bathrobe on Christmas morning, with his new set of "Creepy Crawlers," a toy from Mattel which let kids pour colored liquid plastic into metal molds to make, in this case, all sorts of bugs and lizards and such. The plastic would become solid after heating the molds to high temperatures with the included hot plate. Later that morning, this boy burned his fingers playing with this toy. He regretted nothing.
December 25, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
franzanth.bsky.social
Have yourself a merry little Carboniferous.
#Art #SciArt #PaleoArt #Inverts
a pine tree with bugs hanging all around it. at the very top is a dragonfly-like meganeura with open wings, circling the base is the giant millipede arthropleura. on the branches sit various insects and circular pine cones.
December 20, 2024 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
wizentrop.bsky.social
Today I have something really special for you guys! Not too far from the caiman I posted recently, I found something MIND BLOWING

This is a butterfly pupa, and it mimics the head of a snake. And not just any snake, but specifically the head of a boa snake!!! Probably Opsiphanes, an owlet butterfly.
December 24, 2025 at 4:17 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
I may have overcrowded the cookie sheet and ended up with ginger cubes
A photo of ginger crackle cookies on a crowded cookie sheet, which have spread out and semi-merged into squares rather than circles.
December 24, 2025 at 6:02 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
I haven't been taking many pictures the last couple of weeks, (and today it's pouring rain), but here's a photo I took on Christmas Eve three years ago, of a single green lacewing egg in my garden. Think of it as a wrapped present with a bug in it.
🎁🌿🐙📷 #bugsky
A macro photo of a single green lacewing egg on its thin stalk above a fuzzy, rumpled green leaf, and against an orange background. The egg looks like a tiny, oblong, lime-green balloon on a string.
December 24, 2025 at 4:43 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
I don't know if it counts as a holiday miracle or the start of a biological horror novel (why-not-both meme), but this morning while picking blood oranges I found a hummingbird nest with a mummified baby hummingbird in it.🪹🐣💀
December 23, 2025 at 6:44 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
Starting tomorrow we're supposed to get several inches of rain here in the Los Angeles area. So I made the necessary preparations: I scattered a pound of mixed native wildflower seeds (from CA native plant nursery @theodorepayne.bsky.social) all over my front and back garden. 🌼 🌧️
December 22, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
alexwild.bsky.social
Found a nest of one of my favorites! A true oddball. Leptomyrmex erythrocephalus, the red-headed spider ant.
Macro photo of an extremely leggy, spiderlike back ant with white feet and a red head, in side/top view against a pure white background. Macro photo of an extremely leggy, spiderlike back ant with white feet and a red head, in face view against a pure white background.
December 20, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
ricksteves.bsky.social
It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans.

🧵 1 of 9
December 21, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Tom Astle
saskajanet.bsky.social
Spring survivor #ArtAdventCalendar #Photography

An overwintered Mourning Cloak butterfly warms up in the early spring sunshine
Photograph of a brown velvety butterfly with light yellow band and blue spots along the edges of its wings. It is perched on a bare twig with wings spread. The background is soft focus beige.
December 19, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by Tom Astle
scottpegan.bsky.social
#TigerBeetles — the #Christmas lights of the #insect world! #biodiversity

(Fig. 1 from Duran et al. 2020)
doi.org/10.3390/genes1…
December 19, 2025 at 1:50 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
Here is your Wednesday White Weevil
(Broad-nosed weevil, Colombia – zoom in on the face to see metallic pink-orange scales) #bugsky 🐙🌿
A closeup photo, side view, of a white weevil on green leaves against a blue sky background. Up close, the weevil has tiny metallic pink-orange scales on its head and antennae.
December 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
tjalamont.bsky.social
I have 3 little bottles of honey from 3 different species of stingless bees from my trip to Costa Rica earlier this year. I store them in a dark pantry like I do honeybee honey, but when I opened them today I discovered they’d started to ferment! Bee beer? Looks like I might get a bit of a buzz 🐝 🍺
A picture of a small bottle of honey from stingless bees, on a white tile countertop; there’s a foam layer on top of the liquid, indicating it’s starting to ferment.
December 16, 2025 at 2:06 AM