Nat
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bugs-are-nice.bsky.social
Nat
@bugs-are-nice.bsky.social
Bugs and fungi photos.🐞🍄 I love bees! 🐝 Environmental science masters student. Doing art occasionally. I also enjoy electronics and tech. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Pinned
Giant Polypore
#bees queen red-tailed bumblebee (b.lapidarius) and common carder (b.pascuorum) 🐝
April 15, 2025 at 3:19 PM
🐝 Today I was delighted to find what I thought was a broken-belted bumblebee (b.soroeensis).
But no, upon closer inspection, the break is due to a loss of yellow hairs, not the addition of black ones, and the white tail band is missing. This is the Early bumblebee (b.pratorum). #bee #bees
April 14, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Earthstar, Geastrum fungus #fungi #fungifriends
March 23, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Seedling update! Mostly everything has geminated including corncockle, chicory, self-heal, chives, coreopsis, yarrow, cardamine, valerian and musk mallow... in that order.

What hasn't germinated is violets, red-dead nettle, Canterbury bells aconitum and lungwart.
March 20, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Putting the bees out for the spring. These are Andrena Scotia. The hawthorn bee, and they should emerge late this month or next month. #bees
March 1, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by Nat
It’s official, 2024 was the worst year for bumblebees since records began🚨

The latest findings from #BeeWalk, our national bumblebee monitoring scheme, have revealed bumblebee numbers declined by almost a quarter (22.5%) across Great Britain💔

Read on: www.bumblebeeconservation.org/british-bumb...
February 27, 2025 at 9:01 AM
#fungifriends birch polypores
February 22, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Such an adorable talk this was: Earwigs don't go back to earwig hotels because of the quality, but instead if an earwig is currently happy inside and releasing pheromones ie, "currently giving it a good review" others in range will visit it. 😂
February 21, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Some of my favourite moments from Lars's talk yesterday: Finding out that bees play and have emotional states. That they can imagine the shape of objects they have felt but not seen. Learning their brains are more fine, complex and specialized than human ones, so they are smart despite their size.
February 19, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Nat
Our new paper, based on data from 1,705 studies, shows that pesticides are toxic to organisms they are not intended to harm, including fungi, microbes, plants, insects, & vertebrates such as ourselves. Questions the wisdom of applying over 3 million tonnes of them every year...
February 13, 2025 at 4:14 PM
A cluster of ladybirds is called a "loveliness", it's an old Suffolk term.
Another photo from my book Walking with Wildlife, which covers a year walking on Dupplin Estate in Perthshire. Over 100 ladybirds hibernating on this old gate on the south side of a wood. What draws them together like this, pheromones?
February 16, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Have started the seedlings off early for the year indoors. I am adding to the native plants with cuckoo flower, corncockle which was almost extinct in the UK in 2014, pulsatilla, red dead-nettle, soapwart, yarrow, chicory(?), pulmonaria or lungwart, and monkshood or aconitum napellus.
February 15, 2025 at 7:02 PM
“The sun poured out light on flooded waters, on purple-side thickets of alder, and celandines under them….as if all was now to be well.”

From E. Thomas, In Pursuit of Spring.
www.edwardthomaspoetryplaces.com/post/celandine
February 8, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Nat
If you discover a hibernating bumblebee while digging in your garden or allotment this winter, try to avoid disturbing her, and loosely re-cover her so she can hit the snooze button until spring. More advice from @bumblebeetrust.bsky.social at www.bumblebeeconservation.org
#SaveTheBees #nature 🐝
February 6, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Nat
Pet owners accidentally poisoning garden birds.
Our latest research finds pet flea treatments (fipronil and imidacloprid) in 100% of blue tit and great tit nests, with nestling mortality higher in the more contaminated nest. @SongBirdSBS @SussexUni @CannelleTassin
January 27, 2025 at 8:53 AM
I did some sculpting and 3D printing and made a Blahaj shower thing using OnShape and Meshmixer. #blahaj #3Dprinting
January 30, 2025 at 12:40 PM
This was a fascinating talk, I learnt about how treehoppers use the protubances on their heads to use static electricity to detect predators, how insects visiting flowers use electrostatic charges to help them attract pollen, how ticks use electrostatic charges to passively attach to hosts...
January 30, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Nat
New book: #Paleontology in Public - and it's 100% free to read! I contributed a chapter on the public history of #Spinosaurus, co-authored with @tattersdill.bsky.social, and also provided some Gertie-inspired cover art. Congrats to @chrismanias.bsky.social for getting this over the line!
"Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time" is out today, and is freely downloadable as an open access pdf, published by @uclpress.bsky.social !

uclpress.co.uk/book/palaeon...

🎺🦕🦕🦕⚒️🎥🦖🦖🦖📖📰🦣🦣🦣🎺
January 21, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Nat
One might think that Nazi crimes and palaeontology never overlapped, and yet... Have you ever wondered what happened to tens of palaeontologists & geologists in the Nazi-occupied Poland? How academics helped to bring down the fascist regime. And a curious story of Schindler-equivalent in geology. 🧵
December 5, 2024 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Nat
dinosaurs are so cool
January 15, 2025 at 9:47 PM
I'm on the fibrecap server.
Did you know we're all placed onto different Bluesky servers, and they're named after mushrooms??

You can find out what mushroom server you're on by looking yourself up on Clearsky clearsky.app

I'm team oyster mushroom. 🦪🍄
January 15, 2025 at 4:17 PM
I've just noticed @biologicalrecording.co.uk have a load of really interesting talks. I've signed up for thier Bumblebees of the UK series.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bumblebees...
Bumblebees of the UK Part 2
Learn about the rare and localised species of bumblebee occurring in the UK with Dr Nikki Gammans.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
January 15, 2025 at 10:43 AM
I am so hyped for the Europa mission. I'm excited for what this latest mission could find out about life below the icy surface.
imagine telling me that 5 years later i’d be on the europa clipper team.

life is so crazy, don’t EVER give up on your dreams.
January 15, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Today is the last day you can stream the Fungi Film Festival. www.fungifilmfest.com/2024
Page - Fungi Film Fest
20 films | 2+ hours | 17 countries
www.fungifilmfest.com
January 13, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Giant Polypore
December 26, 2024 at 11:06 AM