Max Aubry
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strepsipzerg.com
Max Aubry
@strepsipzerg.com
310 followers 730 following 220 posts
Entomologist, storyteller
Probably in a park somewhere in Vienna
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wrote a short science #poem about my mindset when I go around looking for bugs
#scicomm
Would you decide to take a walk to see nature and breath fresh air let me give you a little talk : my method for outdoors self-care. It takes a while to find the thing, the rarest sight you can capture. It is not what I am seeking I'm happy with simpler nature. Irrelevant when I wander or what I get to see I do take joy in the commoner interest is the key! On your curiosity transect you can discover, beautiful Of the most usual insect a renewed shine of cuticle.
November 3, 2025 at 6:07 PM
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I went on a hike yesterday. It's a bit late for insects, but perfect time and weather for fungi! Also TONS of salamander #nature #mushrooms #fungus
A close up shot of a small mushroom growing on a relatively dry, cleaning cut tree stump. The mushroom is a mix of orange and dark brown in color, and a mix of velvety and fluffy in texture. A orange jelly fungus growing on a cleanly cut tree stump. It's covered in tiny grey invertebrates, probably spring-tails. the fungus looks like a bright orange mush, with irregular shapes surrounded by mini-domes on the surface of the wood. A fire salamander climbing a very steep slope. It's black and yellow, with shiny skin. The ground is a mixture of rocks and clay with a bit of vegetation. A fungus growing on a tree stump. It looks like a colony of small beige spheres. Maybe 50 of them.
October 21, 2025 at 4:35 PM
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Hmmm egg
#insects
A great green bush-cricket, eating a piece of egg white held by human fingers. A close up shot of the Bush cricket. It's standing head down on a tree trunk.
October 17, 2025 at 11:38 AM
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The second insect is a damselfly, similar to one that can be seen a bit everywhere in Europe, but showing reddish colors. This is Calopteryx haemorrhoidalis, the Copper demoiselle. The name is a bit unfortunate I think 😅
#insects
A damselfly is catching the sun, on a rock. A river can be seen in the background. the damselfly has dark wings with a white spot in the middle, and a red/coppery body.
October 16, 2025 at 12:32 PM
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More southern European #insects! Although the first one is present all the way up to Belgium and Germany, just not as easy to observe.
This big wasp with hornet color code is Delta unguiculatum, a potter wasp (Eumeninae). It was harvesting material for its nest pottery.
A relatively big wasp, landed on the ground and looking down. It has the same color than a European hornet: fawn thorax and upper abdomen, yellow elsewhere. Its wings are also Compared to a hornet, it is much slender, with a very long petiole.
October 16, 2025 at 12:32 PM
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On my way back to Austria, in the center of Paris, I saw this tiny butterfly.
It struck me as "out of place" in a way. I wasn't wrong, this species wasn't present in Paris before the 2010s. #insects #butterfly
A small butterfly on a green leaf. More leaves are seen in the background. the butterfly has marbled grey-brown wings, with little tails around the back. The wings also have fringed, white and brown. I think it's quite cute.
October 12, 2025 at 8:15 AM
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this year I saw two Red underwing, one of the biggest Noctuid moths in central Europe. They are pretty neat, I think. Their caterpillars develop on willows and poplars, so it makes sense they would feel at home in #Vienna since we have many of those. #insects #moths #cityWildlife
a big moth in a glass jar. It has grey marbled upper-wings, and much more flashy under-wings with scarlet red and black bands, along with a white fringe on the edge.
October 9, 2025 at 12:32 PM
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such a cute weevil. I haven't seen this genus in... 15 years maybe. I really like it, and the one I saw back is on my CV ever since hehe

this is Rhynchites bacchus!

It was already in my window yesterday but I forgot to check it. It would have been perfect for #WeevilWednesday

#insects #beetle
A small beetle on the tip of my finger. It's quite round, but with a long proboscis. It is also shiny pink, and very cute. The same beetle, now on its back, resting on a table. It is pretending to be dead, but it's very healthy actually. A third picture of the same beetle, a macroshot of it standing on my window glass.
October 9, 2025 at 10:11 AM
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We are done with the #insects workshops until spring, so it's time to release the butterflies!
Adults were released on the last day, with the kids, but I have a bunch of pupae left. I spread them in the park next door and hopefully they will hatch soon!
#cityWildlife #scicomm
two butterfly chrysalises are resting on a piece of stained kitchen tissue. The one on the right is twice the length of the one of the left. They both have similar shapes, very pointy. The bigger chrysalis is brown with a few golden spots, while the smaller one is darker brown, with silvery spots, making it look like very fancy bird poop. A series of butterfly chrysalises, hanging from stems all taped together with bright red masking tape. They are all the same size, but different shades of brown, from almost beige to almost black. One is almost completely hidden in a curled up dried leaf. The tape is stuck to a glass jar containing a piece of kitchen tissue, and more chrysalises.
October 7, 2025 at 4:35 PM
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It's time to bottle the walnut #wine I started in June!
I ended up not having enough bottles, so I will have to reach out to my extended friend group to give away some of the wine 😅 .
But it smells super nice and will be very good I think
#diy #fermentation #alcohol
A picture of me pouring a dark liquid from a big plastic bowl to a big ceramic jar. A cloth is laid on the jar to filter the liquid. A nicely ordered set of 9 bottles. At the back are 4 tall bottles with long necks, then a row of 4 smaller flip-top bottles . In the front, a single small flip-top bottle. They're all filled with a dark liquid.
October 5, 2025 at 8:15 AM
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Très content de te montrer ça pour la première fois si tu n'as jamais vu ces misprints
Un pile de trois livres "La zone du Dehors", de l'auteur Walain Damasio
October 3, 2025 at 6:12 PM
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Of the Chrysalises I had, some didn't hatch butterflies but wasps!
This is a ichneumonid wasp, Apechthis sp, which parasitizes many Lepidopterans. Kids were super interested and had fun guessing what it could be before we explained.
A black wasp seen through a white net. It's a bit more slender than a common social waps. It also has longer antennae, and red legs. At the end of its abdomen starts a thick tube, the ovipositor. Another shit of the same wasp. Slightly closer, and it's now hanging upside down.
September 28, 2025 at 10:12 AM
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Some #insects from Southern France!
the first one is Macronemurus appendiculatus, an antlion. Its larvae don't make a pit, unlike most other antlions!
The second one is Ameles decolor, one of the two species of dwarf mantis in Southern France.
#macrophotography
An insect, standing on the lower side of a twig. It has long wings covering most of its body. It seems to be mostly light yellow and dark brown, with big black eyes and long twirly antennae. Its wings have a complex network of veins. A small mantis is climbing up a dry blade of grass. It's light yellow, same color as its climbing support. It has long, thin antennae with dark tips. It seems to be looking up at something out of the frame.
September 28, 2025 at 8:15 AM
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Cute moth, seen and rescued in the street! According to @inaturalist.bsky.social, it's really at the end of usual observation period.
It feeds on many weeds, often unwanted in cities. Luckily we can see many of these #Unkraut in Vienna! And so we can enjoy this mossy moth!
#insects #cityWildlife
A moth is standing on the asphalt floor. It has a beautiful pattern of grey-brown, green, and silver on its wings and thorax. It is quite fluffy at well, with a tuft of hair forming a peak behind its head. It's seen from the side, and you can see one of its round black eyes. A graph, screenshoted from iNaturalist. X axis is time, divided by months. The curve looks like the sum of two gaussians, with peaks in Jun and august. Y has no unit, but starts increasing in April and is back to zero in October.
September 26, 2025 at 10:19 PM
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Earlier this week I could visit a mini nuclear reactor!
With @thomaszauner.bsky.social and others from our #scicomm group, we visited the Atominstitut of @tuwien.at , and had a nice look at the reactor they use for research.
#nuclearPower #energy #physics
A big yellow structure seen from below. It looks like an hexagonal tower, maybe 7 meters tall. A peak inside the water basin of the nuclear reactor. At the bottom of the pit you can see some rods, and many empty circular holes where other rods could go.
September 24, 2025 at 12:22 PM
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A close-up shot of a couple of shiny purple beetles copulating on a widow flower. The male only is entirely visible, the female being busy eating from the flower as well as copulating. The male is slightly darker purple, and you can see its very round pronotum giving it a bit of a hunch. The elytra are densely punctuated, giving them a grainy texture. A click beetle is standing, head down, on a stem of grass. Its long body is mostly black, with only the pronotum being partly red. Its a bit shiny, with some mud on the apex of its elytra. A moth sitting on a Knautia widow flower. It has black and creamy-colored markings on all wings, some ressembling a capital M. The pattern is said to ressemble a witch's face seen from the side, but to me it looks more like a sock puppet. A close up shot of a small moth sitting on a widow flower. Its body is small and slender, but it has very long and thin antennae, apparently catching the wind. The antannae are attached to a fluffy orange head, while the rest of the moth is a more modest dusty, dull yellow.
June 12, 2025 at 11:03 AM
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A blue butterfly, standing on a dried up dandelion-like flower. It's seen from the side, and with its wings slightly raised you can only see the underside of them, not the blue. Instead, they are grey-brown with many black dots circled in white. Around the posterior margin, orange spots are also joining the party. A part of the hind wings appear to be a bit damaged, a part is missing. With the light shining on the wings, the white fringes are very visible and quite cute. The body of the butterfly is fluffy and light grey-blue. From this profile view, you see only one big black eye, and the cute snout raising upward. the antennae are striped black and grey, ending in a nice dark club. Same butterfly as the previous picture, now seen from the top. You are free to admire its blue, shiny wings. The fur on its body is dense, and blue as well. A saw fly on a yellow aster flower. A strange insect, looking like a fly in some ways, like a wasp in others. It is mostly black with many bright yellow spots, and has a big round head, attached quite low on its thorax, giving it a bit of a weird silhouette. The one photo without insects! Just a nice orchid flower. It is a bee orchid, so the theme is respected. The orchid stem carried two flowers, one facing you, the other facing away. Three pink petals open on a fleshy part, supposed to mimick a bee. It's a bit hard to see, on the picture it mostly looks like a brown bulb with some lighter parts. In the background, a blurry grassy meadow.
June 12, 2025 at 11:03 AM
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A strange kind of fly, shot just after it was taking of from a rock. The wings are only a blurry shadow around its fluffy black body. The hind legs are extended in the back, while the two frontal pairs of leg are neatly kept close to the body. You can only barely distinguish two dark red eyes, with a long rostrum, on the head. A fluffy bee sitting on a purple centaury flower. Quite different from a honey bee, this one is sturdier and fluffier. The ventral part of its abdomen is covered in thick, bright orange fur, while the dorsal part is mostly black. The bee is enjoying a sip of nectar. A longhorn beetle standing on an aster flower. Its body is black banded with yellow, or maybe the opposite? It's quite an even split. Only the legs and antennae are of a nice fawny color. It seems to be walking on the flower, probably ready to take off to visit another one! Close up shot of a slender, black and yellow wasp. It is sitting on a bushy plant of some sort. The wasp is facing you, looking at you. You can see the bright yellow stem of its antennae, and its wings nicely grouped together on top of its body. Its legs and neck are also yellow, but the rest of the body is jet black.
June 12, 2025 at 11:00 AM
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Had some pre-alpine meadow fun this weekend! Here are some insect pics from the hike
A very nice moth, sitting on the apex of vetch leaf. It's a burnet moth, wings orderly stored along its body, dark blue with five bright red dots. You can see the characteristic shape of its antennae, a bit thicker a bit before the apex. In the background is a dense, blurry mess of more vetch plants. Two small dung beetles around a ball of dung, one with head up and one with head down. The duo is rolling the poop sphere on asphalt ground with a lot of rocks embedded in it. The beetles both have very long hind legs, probably useful to roll their poopy bounty. A dragonfly is perched on an ear of some grassy plant. It has a big muscular thorax, and a head mostly made of eyes. Both are fawn colored overall. The abdomen is slender, transitioning from fawn to black around the middle, with yellow spots on the sides. The dragon fly has four large wings, with complex venation, each carrying two black marks along the upper margin, on in the middle, one just before the apex. The upper margin is lightly fawn tainted. A butterfly sits on a white flower, wings horizontal for you to see from above. It has slender antenna ending with a light yellow club. The body is black and furry. The wings are margined in white, looking like a lace fringe. The rest of the wings is a complex pattern of orange and black, with many squares, dots, and cells.
June 12, 2025 at 10:58 AM
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I found this in the floor on my way to my co-working space. It's a moth wing. A single wing!
I've never seen the species it belongs to in the area, and probably won't. But thanks to ants trying to carry that into their nest, I know it's around.
A simple shot of a wing on the cobblestone floor. It has a shape close to a typical bird feather, a bit more triangular. It has a beige stroke in the middle, warm brown above and below it. The lower border has a wide grey margin.
June 5, 2025 at 9:59 AM
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Adult Hungarian gliders are back in my neighborhood!
A butterfly standing on a leaf, in a bush. There's not a lot of direct light reaching the leaves, the area is probably partly under tree cover. The butterfly has its wings at a 45° angle from horizontal, and is seen from the side, so you can see both sides a bit. The upper side is velvet black with white spots, and the under side warm brown with the same white spots. A butterfly standing on a leaf, in a bush. There's not a lot of direct light reaching the leaves, the area is probably partly under tree cover. The butterfly has its wings wide open, seen from the top, perfect for you to see. The upper side is velvet black with white spots.
June 3, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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If you see this, I IMPLORE you to post a picture from whatever device you're using without explanation
Photo of my tv playing star trek. Trip the engineer points at the left of the camera and says ''Im gonna build you a throne.''
May 18, 2025 at 11:34 AM
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Someone is waiting for the sun to be back in Vienna apparently
A sawfly standing on a very green leaf of some sort. The leaf has some droplets of water on it, giving the whole scene a very wet vibe. The sawfly is bright orange and black, with the black part suite shiny. It has black eyes, tip of antennae, and a black pattern on the back. The rest is almost entirely bright orange. It has a wide head, and quite strong shoulders. The wings are folded together tightly, reaching a bit beyond the tip of its abdomen. A very pretty insect, looking like a weird bulky wasp overall.
May 4, 2025 at 4:45 PM
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A close-up shot of a couple of flies, standing on a rosebush leaf. They are apparently copulating, with a slightly smaller fly, a male, on top of a slightly bigger one, the female. The flies look simiar aside from size: wide yellos head with red eyes, round black shiny thorax, and beautiful wings with a complexe black pattern on them. A close-up shot of a fluffy caterpillar sitting on a dried plant. You cannot really see much more than the fluff. It's seen from the side, with dense grey fur, but you can also see some orange and black fur on the top. It has longer hairs spiking here and there. A light brown frog, sitting on the side of a pond on rock. Its legs are banded with slightly darker brow, and it has a nice dark mark starting from its eye, going down to the back of its head. A close-up shot of an alderfly standing on a thick green pruinous leaf. this insect is dark, with a robust black body and thick wings. The wings appear mostly transparent, but have big dark veins giving them a solid aspect. They are covering most of the body of this insect, like a roof over it.
April 23, 2025 at 12:27 PM
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nice insects from my weekend
A close-up shot of a beetle in a cavity in dead wood. Its standing with its head down. It has big black eyes and short antennae. Spiky white hair is covering a lot of its body. It has a particular color pattern: black head and butt, dark red elbows, and a white stripe in the back. A close-up photo of a bee on my fingers. It's quite fluffy, almost entirely covered in light beige fur. It has slender legs with some blakc tuff of hair, and big eyes. It seems to be looking at the camera. In the background is a blurry green meadow. A close-up shot of a carpenter bee, standing on the ark of a dead tree stump. It is a big, black, shiny bee. It's catching a lot of sun and probably warming up. You can see its abdomen is partly covered in dense black shiny fur. Its dark wings have some beautiful blue reflexions. A close-up photo of a green lizard. Its jaw and mandible are light teal, reaching also on the sides of its head. You can see the light brown color of its iris, with its visible eye carefully looking at the camera. It is resting on the side of a stone wall, with dense grass behind it, covering the end of its tail already.
April 23, 2025 at 12:27 PM