Eric R. Eaton
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bugeric.bsky.social
Eric R. Eaton
@bugeric.bsky.social
6.3K followers 4K following 2.3K posts
Nonfiction author, blogger, insect identifier, ally. Presenter/speaker. #SciComm, entomology, urban nature, human conflict with other species, other humans. Opposed to colonialism, capitalism. Married Progressive in Kansas, USA.
he/him/they
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bugeric.bsky.social
Airports should hire stand up comedians to work at TSA lines:
“Hey, buddy, cargo pants are now considered a carry-on item.
I’m kidding.
I’ll be here all week.
The way this line is moving, so will you.”
Screenshot from my YouTube channel featuring a video of my stand up comedy set from decades ago. White man in his forties, with dark brown hair, wearing white shirt with dark blue trim, and navy blue pants, standing in front of a microphone on stage with brick wall behind him. Sign for Laffs comedy club in upper right corner.
November 7, 2025 at 2:08 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
The people behind Fat Bear Week, and Fat Squirrel Week, are missing the obvious. Don't they know that what we *really* want is "Fat Ass Week." My favorite to win it all would be "Chonky Badonkadonkey." #fatbearweek #humor #comedy
Wild Ass, standing in a zoo enclosure, against a black tree trunk, with a building in background. Facing camera, the animal resembles a horse, pale gray, and white legs with transverse black zebra stripes. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
November 3, 2025 at 4:48 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
Happy Halloween, and final day of #Arachtober. I found this handsome male crab spider (Xysticus sp.) crawling slowly over our house foundation outside today. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA. #bugsky #spiders
A long legged male crab spider, facing southwest, moves slowly across a pale gray, textured and painted concrete foundation. Spider is a beautiful reddish brown color.
October 31, 2025 at 10:18 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
I am an author being overwhelmed by emails from people offering their services to promote my new book. This is a brand new problem, and I do not have an agent or publicist to sift through the offers. Help? #writingcommunity #authors
Older White man standing behind a chair, and a table featuring four of my book titles. A large poster representing the cover of my newest book, Bugwatching: The Art, Joy, and Importance of Observing Insects, is on the floor to the right of the table. All of this is inside a public library.
October 31, 2025 at 1:10 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
I’ve been neglecting #Arachtober, but here is a male Dotted Wolf Spider, Rabidosa punctulata, that I spotted around the exterior of the Kansas Wetlands Education Center near Great Bend, Kansas, USA, last Thursday afternoon. Named for black speckling on underside of abdomen. #bugsky #spider
Wolf spider facing left, sprawled on the ground at the base of a window frame. Spider is beige with dark brown vertical stripes the length of its body.
October 27, 2025 at 2:02 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
My partner, Heidi, was looking for this Limpkin, which had been seen over several days at Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area near Great Bend, Kansas, USA. Obviously, we found it, this morning. It was hunting snails about 30 feet away. #birdsky #birding #birds
Looking down from a road along a berm, into a canal/ditch at a long-legged bird about the size of a large chicken, with long, narrow, slightly downcurved bill, as it walked among large rocks with woody and weedy vegetation. Bird is dark brown, mottled with white speckles, spots, and streaks.
October 24, 2025 at 11:08 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
One of the most absurd insects found in Kansas, USA, is the Great Crested Grasshopper. We found this one today at Point of Rocks in the Cimarron National Grasslands, Morton County, Kansas. #bugsky #insect #insects #grasshopper
Large green grasshopper with high crest on thorax. Crest has fine teeth along its edge, and two vertical white stripes. Narrow green wings with sparse large brown spots and streaks. Antennae orange-yellow. Hind legs long. The insect is on bare, rocky soil, and is facing right.
October 22, 2025 at 2:52 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
Blazingstars, Mentzelia spp., are among my favorite wildflowers. Near Liberal, Kansas, USA, today. Yes, the name of the town is an oxymoron for this conservative state. #wildflowers #botany #plantsky #bloomscrolling
Large, creamy white flower with ten narrow petals radiating from the center, along with long, stringy white filaments at the center. Unopened buds, and gray-green foliage in background. Beige, sandy soil is visible, too, but out of focus.
October 20, 2025 at 2:37 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
Wicked gusty winds in and around Ashland, Kansas, USA, today were hard on us humans, but made the thick Little Bluestem grass dance beautifully.
October 19, 2025 at 4:31 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
This male cicada parasite beetle, Sandalus niger, flew onto me yesterday while I was inspecting our backyard fence. Autumn seems to be the season for the truly weird bugs. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA. #bugsky #beetles #insects #beetle #insect
Rectangular, but rounded beetle with head at left. Elytra (wing covers) dark reddish brown, remainder of insect dark gray. Antennae rusty brown, and fan-like. Insect is alive, in a white casserole dish.
October 17, 2025 at 4:02 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
Fulgoraecia exigua is the Planthopper Parasite Moth, a diminutive creature, the caterpillar of which lives as an external parasite of planthoppers, sucking the host’s hemolymph. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, October 14, 2025. #bugsky #moth #moths #insects
Very small, dark gray moth with elliptical wings and comb-like antennae, sitting on window screen, head up.
October 15, 2025 at 2:39 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
One of my favorite insects in its trademark Halloween colors: an assassin bug, Pselliopus barberi. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, October 10, 2025. #bugsky #insects #insect
Oval, orange colored insect with black and white banded antennae, black and orange banded legs, and black hash marks around the edges of the abdomen. Perched on the toothed edge of a leaf, with part of a chain link fence in the background.
October 13, 2025 at 4:11 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
Last night I delivered a presentation on spiders to members of the Topeka Audubon Society, in Topeka, Kansas, USA. It was not recorded, but I will be repeating this, virtually, early next year.

Next up is Heartland Book Festival in Kansas City this Saturday.
Me, older White man, dressed in dark clothing, standing next to a large monitor, presenting on the topic of spiders to an audience of mostly other older people, sitting in chairs in large room.
October 9, 2025 at 3:31 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
The selfie mode on my iPhone 14 comes in handy for reaching concealed spiders like this Lattice Orbweaver, Araneus thaddeus. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, October 1, 2025. #Arachtober #spider #spiders #bugsky
Small, globular spider with big, silvery gray abdomen, and orange legs and carapace, sitting just outside her tunnel-like retreat beneath two leaflets of a Black Walnut sapling. Adjacent, barely visible in the lower left corner, is the edge of her orb web.
October 2, 2025 at 11:40 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
It's that time of year again: #arachtober! I will try to celebrate as many days as I can. This spider is a Woodlouse Hunter, Dysdera crocata. She has long jaws and only 6 eyes (most spiders have 8). Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, April 28, 2025. #bugsky #spiders
Spider with elliptical shape, long chelicerae attached to nearly circular, chestnut colored cephalothorax. Abdomen gray, legs orange. Sprawling in a casserole dish "studio." The Woodlouse Hunter spider, Dysdera crocata.
October 2, 2025 at 1:07 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
Another scorpion wannabe moth. This one is substantially larger than the one I posted yesterday, and in a different family. Genus Eulithis, in Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, September 30, 2025.
Pale brown moth with abdomen curled like a scorpion’s tail. Triangular wings beige with irregular, widely spaced brown pinstripes. Moth perched on terra cotta colored stucco wall.
September 30, 2025 at 10:37 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
What a moth! Eggplant Leafroller, Lineodes integra. On our backyard fence. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, September 29, 2025. It’s facing north, abdomen curled back to nearly reach its face. Totally convincing of a wisp of dry grass.
Very slender, long-legged, narrow winged moth, facing north, perched on the edge of a knothole in a wooden fence. Moth’s abdomen is curled over its back to meet its head, like a scorpon’s tail. Overall color is brown, with white lines and darker brown ribbons down the wings.
September 29, 2025 at 7:06 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
Feeding swarm of darner dragonflies over our house earlier this evening. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA. #bugsky #dragonflies #insects
September 28, 2025 at 12:47 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
Spotted this enormous caterpillar of a Polyphemus Moth today, during the two week bioblitz at the Linda Hall Library arboretum in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. #bugsky #caterpillar #insects
Huge, bright green caterpillar, each body segment with a thin yellow stripe, and a tiny brown oval (spiracle for breathing). Clinging to a twig of Post Oak tree.
September 21, 2025 at 1:16 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
Obscure Bird Grasshopper gracing our backyard today in Leavenworth, Kansas, USA. Please consider following me for more insect photos, as I always forget hashtags. Thanks! #bugsky #grasshoppers #insects #entomology
Large grasshopper in profile, on seed heads of coneflower. Grasshopper is olive green with black and yellow markings and brown, leathery wings, yellow antennae.
September 8, 2025 at 11:35 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
A thread-waisted wasp, Eremnophila aureonotata, perched on leaves of White Snakeroot in our backyard last Friday, September 5, on an overcast afternoon. Likely sleeping, and easily approached. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA.
Very slender black wasp, with bright silver spots on the sides of its thorax, perched on leaves, facing east (right). Overcast afternoon.
September 8, 2025 at 10:59 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
Somewhere in the pile of logs at the base of our backyard brush pile, we have a nest of American Bumble Bee, Bombus pensylvanicus. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA.
Pile of logs and branches with some dead leaves on the ground.
September 8, 2025 at 6:45 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
Another uncommon butterfly on the Eupatorium flowers in our backyard. Summer Azure most likely. The last one I saw was in June of 2021. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA. September 4, 2025.
Small, pale gray (almost white) butterfly, with darker spots and chevrons on the underside of the wings. Perched on small white flowers. Wooden fence in background, on a sunny day. Butterfly partly in shadow of plant foliage.
September 6, 2025 at 7:17 PM
bugeric.bsky.social
Today was the second time this male Blue Dasher dragonfly has made an appearance in our backyard. Funny, as we only have a forty gallon prefabricated pond, with no emergent vegetation. Perched on a twig in the brush pile. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA.
Dragonfly perched horizontally on the tip of a vertical twig. Big, blue-gray eyes, white face. Thorax white with diagonal black stripes. Abdomen powder blue with black tip. Wings clear, but smoky brown at base. Gray exterior wall of our garage in background.
August 29, 2025 at 2:09 AM
bugeric.bsky.social
*#@&!
Black and white map of the United States, with text reading "This Country Has Gone 1 Days Without a Mass Shooting." The "1" has a red "X" through it, with a red zero next to it, and a red (blood) spatter in the middle of the map.
August 27, 2025 at 11:42 PM