Louis Nastasi
@toomanywasps.bsky.social
PhD in Entomology, postdoc with Andrew Forbes at UIowa. Gall wasp systematics and more. Research proudly funded by NSF!
https://lfnastasi.wordpress.com/
https://lfnastasi.wordpress.com/
Big news - I’ll be starting an #insect #systematics lab at University of Nebraska-Lincoln this coming academic year! I’m looking to #recruit #PhDstudents to work in #wasp systematics, especially gall systems, to begin Fall 2026. Please help me spread the word — more details on the flyer below!
November 12, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Big news - I’ll be starting an #insect #systematics lab at University of Nebraska-Lincoln this coming academic year! I’m looking to #recruit #PhDstudents to work in #wasp systematics, especially gall systems, to begin Fall 2026. Please help me spread the word — more details on the flyer below!
Hey folks, my #entomology doctoral #dissertation defense seminar is May 30th from 2-3pm Eastern / 6-7pm UTC! Join in person in at 118 ASI or via Zoom (info on flyer or DM me for a direct link!). Come learn about my five years of #gall #wasp #research!
May 13, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Hey folks, my #entomology doctoral #dissertation defense seminar is May 30th from 2-3pm Eastern / 6-7pm UTC! Join in person in at 118 ASI or via Zoom (info on flyer or DM me for a direct link!). Come learn about my five years of #gall #wasp #research!
You tell yourself you're going to be extremely productive in the morning only to spend a substantial part of your afternoon preparing a single material examined section for one species... progress is progress but definitely generates less momentum than other kinds of writing!
March 27, 2025 at 6:22 PM
You tell yourself you're going to be extremely productive in the morning only to spend a substantial part of your afternoon preparing a single material examined section for one species... progress is progress but definitely generates less momentum than other kinds of writing!
Not my usual kind of post on here but we just made one of the best looking pizzas I’ve ever seen
March 14, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Not my usual kind of post on here but we just made one of the best looking pizzas I’ve ever seen
My soundtrack for the foreseeable future while imaging tiny wasps
March 7, 2025 at 2:46 PM
My soundtrack for the foreseeable future while imaging tiny wasps
#NewSpecies alert! We just published a paper in Zootaxa describing two gorgeous species of #Ormyrus parasitoid wasps associated with herb #gall #wasps! Ormyrus bellbowl is named after the Bell Bowl #Prairie in opposition to its abhorrent partial destruction in 2023. #PreserveOurPrairies
March 7, 2025 at 2:11 PM
#NewSpecies alert! We just published a paper in Zootaxa describing two gorgeous species of #Ormyrus parasitoid wasps associated with herb #gall #wasps! Ormyrus bellbowl is named after the Bell Bowl #Prairie in opposition to its abhorrent partial destruction in 2023. #PreserveOurPrairies
Oh boy, I love working on gall wasps (pretends not to notice that all species diagnoses in my revision look like this table)
March 5, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Oh boy, I love working on gall wasps (pretends not to notice that all species diagnoses in my revision look like this table)
When you say the hypopygium is longer, do you mean the ventral spine? Or do you mean the entire sternite?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the hypopygium lately - check out the spine on this new herb galler genus we’re describing from South Africa! It’s enormous and very far projecting
I’ve been thinking a lot about the hypopygium lately - check out the spine on this new herb galler genus we’re describing from South Africa! It’s enormous and very far projecting
February 18, 2025 at 12:36 AM
When you say the hypopygium is longer, do you mean the ventral spine? Or do you mean the entire sternite?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the hypopygium lately - check out the spine on this new herb galler genus we’re describing from South Africa! It’s enormous and very far projecting
I’ve been thinking a lot about the hypopygium lately - check out the spine on this new herb galler genus we’re describing from South Africa! It’s enormous and very far projecting
Your work reminds me a lot of a painting I fell in love with by a local Pennsylvania artist named Susan Graham that I saw a few years back but there were no prints available and the original was far outside my budget!
February 16, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Your work reminds me a lot of a painting I fell in love with by a local Pennsylvania artist named Susan Graham that I saw a few years back but there were no prints available and the original was far outside my budget!
Reading the news today and I think Gordon Ramsay encapsulated my thoughts on Democratic party leadership nearly 20 years ago: “I’ve never, ever, ever, ever met someone I believe in as little as you.”
@housedemocrats.bsky.social @democrats.org
@housedemocrats.bsky.social @democrats.org
February 15, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reading the news today and I think Gordon Ramsay encapsulated my thoughts on Democratic party leadership nearly 20 years ago: “I’ve never, ever, ever, ever met someone I believe in as little as you.”
@housedemocrats.bsky.social @democrats.org
@housedemocrats.bsky.social @democrats.org
Thinking of #calling your #senators or #representatives about #NIH #indirect cuts but not sure what to say? I've been calling my #Pennsylvania reps with the following script:
![Hello, my name is [NAME], and I am a constituent living at [ADDRESS]. I may be contacted by phone at [NUMBER]. [Brief introduction about who you are], and as you may have heard, the recent order to restrict indirect funding rates at the National Institute of Health presents an unprecedented threat to universities in our country.
Indirect funds are written into research grants to pay for things needed for research but do not fall within the grant’s main objectives. This includes important things like support staff, building maintenance and renovations, and utility bills. The new order restricts indirect rates to 15%, while the current rates at most universities are between 50-70%. At [institution], our indirect rate is currently [#], and a cut to only 15% would cost our university tens of millions of dollars annually. The same is true of virtually every other university in the country. That means that my colleagues or I may lose our jobs or access to important resources at our institutions. But it also means that universities will have fewer resources overall to allocate to undergraduates, or even popular programs such as athletics. I am calling to demand that [Representative/Senator Name] leverage [his/her] influence in congress to order that this change to indirect funds be reversed immediately. This attack on our nation’s higher education system cannot be allowed to proceed.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5qsc7g5vwx6gwhp4a3kodn3m/bafkreihpgafap4edrepyecnsxho3wl2bxa6zra7lcydqzykqwrmj4tvsv4@jpeg)
February 8, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Thinking of #calling your #senators or #representatives about #NIH #indirect cuts but not sure what to say? I've been calling my #Pennsylvania reps with the following script:
It's not every day that you identify a robust and easily assessed character that separates the hard-to-diagnose herb gall wasp wasp tribes! Somehow nobody noticed that F1 is always conspicuously longer than F2 in Phanacidini but I've reviewed data for nearly every herb galler and it works!
February 6, 2025 at 4:04 AM
It's not every day that you identify a robust and easily assessed character that separates the hard-to-diagnose herb gall wasp wasp tribes! Somehow nobody noticed that F1 is always conspicuously longer than F2 in Phanacidini but I've reviewed data for nearly every herb galler and it works!
#Taxonomy and #Hymenoptera folks - for my revision of Aulacideini, I have a section talking about my criteria for generic limits - are there any obvious omissions as far as references? It was surprisingly hard to comb Google Scholar for studies talking about generic delimitation.
February 1, 2025 at 10:16 PM
#Taxonomy and #Hymenoptera folks - for my revision of Aulacideini, I have a section talking about my criteria for generic limits - are there any obvious omissions as far as references? It was surprisingly hard to comb Google Scholar for studies talking about generic delimitation.
I’m all for the message in the post but this person in the lower right is so funny to me
February 1, 2025 at 6:21 PM
I’m all for the message in the post but this person in the lower right is so funny to me
A new Phanacidini herb #gallwasp genus from China to be named after someone very worthy of a genus recognizing their important contributions to wasps! One of many cool wasps loaned to me by the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics
January 22, 2025 at 3:29 PM
A new Phanacidini herb #gallwasp genus from China to be named after someone very worthy of a genus recognizing their important contributions to wasps! One of many cool wasps loaned to me by the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics