brendanlan.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

this twitchy creature traveling across a wooden handrail in Singapore is Myrmeplata wanlessi. if you are a human unfamiliar with this species, or a bird or lizard this display is aimed at, you might be surprised to learn that this animal is a jumping spider, not an ant.

submitted 12 days ago • 15 comments

on the hunt for boreids - no dice these guys were cute though ♥️

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

Just a girl and her bundle of baby clones she's wearing like an ass turban 🥹 My population of Schizomida (parthenogenic tailless whipscorpions) are so happy in their box of dirt. As always, tending a box of dirt is such a good decision and I recommend it.

submitted 16 days ago • 23 comments

@science.org just published this article about the Paleontological Research Institution and its importance in this time of financial crisis for the institution. Please share widely as donations in any amount can make a real difference in the short-medium term. ⚒️🧪🦑 www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

funky little twig spider (Poltys) with some sclerotized spots on the posterior end of its abdomen. love these guys sm

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

🕷️ Spiders have a modular visual system with 8 eyes 👀 that are able to specialize for varying tasks Turns out, a pair of secondary eyes 👀 (the two smaller ones flanking their large ones) are specially tuned for perceiving biological motion! 🦟🪰 Check it out!: journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

absolutely delightful recent ("recent") paper blowing the lid open on a super rare genus of hydrophilid beetle. Two specimens collected ca. 1919, then NOTHING for decades. Turns out they were living INSIDE the flowers of Malaysian aroid plants dez.pensoft.net/article/2626...

submitted 26 days ago • 5 comments

Some of my favourite #harvestman #opiliones shots from last year. Getting a good shot is tricky without a stray leg getting in the way😅. They're #arachnids but don't spin silk or have venom. They can't re-grow legs like spiders either and I often find them with several missing. #macrophotography

submitted 33 days ago • 2 comments

Happy Lunar New Year! For the Year of the Snake, here's one of my favorite #snake friends, the Sharp-tailed Snake. They eat slugs so they like hanging out in my backyard & garden. #lunarnewyear #yearofthesnake

submitted 39 days ago • 1 comment

happy lunar new year! 🐍 here's an Atayal slug-eating snake (泰雅钝头蛇) trying to focus on 🐍 instead of 😞 today

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Phrynus asperatipes from south of La Paz, Baja California Sur. This was the first amblypygid I've ever seen in the wild! Second photo is a a full body shot that shows the first pair of legs that are sensory in function and give them the name "whip scorpions"

submitted 449 days ago • 1 comment

Cornell student newspaper article about PRI and how it supports teaching at Cornell cornellsun.com/2025/01/27/m...

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

skimming a paper about beetle prey of robber flies (they're often pinned together in collections) and let's all take a moment to imagine the SIZE of the asilid that took down a whole ass Prionus

submitted 45 days ago • 6 comments

Update and clarifications from PRI. www.priweb.org/press-releas...

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

two-tailed spiders - Hersilia sp. characterized (at least to me lol) by those loooooong spinnerettes and spindly legs these were pretty active in northern Taiwan even in the cooler months of February/March take a look at how cryptic they are against their backgrounds!

submitted 45 days ago • 1 comment

this is a crazy time to be applying for a phd that's for sure

submitted 46 days ago • 0 comments

here's an article written by one of my closest friends on the importance of the Museum of the Earth in her life and in the lives of Cornell students at large check it out! -> cornellsun.com/2025/01/20/g... & if you would like to, please sign the petition! -> www.change.org/p/save-the-m...

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

Our Lucanidae project (vacaloura.pt) just got published! 🥳It began in 2011, focusing on rechecking Museu/specialist records to understand the distribution of Lucanidae species in Portugal. It later evolved into a national Citizen Science effort and revealing some nice patterns that can be read here:

submitted 50 days ago • 2 comments

an appreciation post for some of the funkiest little lepidopterans very out of my depth with these, so ID's appreciated! all from northern Taiwan check out the bird-dung mimic 🐦...

submitted 50 days ago • 2 comments

one of the WEIRDEST spiders out there - Miagrammopes sp. species in this genus have 4-6 eyes, stubby legs 2 and 3, have no venom (along with the rest of the family), hunt weird, and look WEIRD check out @nickybay.bsky.social's work for much better pics :) #scicomm #spider #stick

submitted 52 days ago • 2 comments

The little Tiktaalik wants YOU to go to the Paleontological Research Institute’s website, buy a bunch of plushies of Paleozoic life, and help them out in their time of dire financial need! pri-gift-shop.myshopify.com

submitted 54 days ago • 7 comments

my roommate and good friend fell in love with paleontology - due in large part to the PRI. on top of having millions of fossils in their collection, the PRI is many bio undergrads’ main exposure to natural history museums at Cornell. please support and share widely! ❤️

submitted 55 days ago • 1 comment

this was weird - a giant red-headed centipede chowing down (or trying to) on a snail never seen any 'pedes go after gastropods before but i mean they're yum enough for France so why not

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

surprised to find a couple brumating alligator lizards - I’d say 3rd coolest lizards in the Central Valley

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

Missing her (Bolas spider) 🤎 I have a 4-minute video of her making her little silk bolas. 2022 was a god-awful year for me in pretty much every respect, except the bugs. The bugs were amazing. #Arachtober

submitted 151 days ago • 1 comment

Chitoria chrysolora (台灣小紫蛺蝶), just a little guy! one of the wild caterpillars with a heavily armed head - similar to the dragon's head caterpillar or the Japanese emperor caterpillar that made the rounds on the internet a while back #caterpillar #nature #macro #scicomm #Taiwan

submitted 61 days ago • 1 comment

the iridescence on this guy blew me away... a beautiful male lichen huntsman (Pandercetes) that was oddly out during the day

submitted 63 days ago • 1 comment

#EarwigFunFact 5/n - Female earwigs prefer males with long forceps, yet not all males have them. Why? It's still a mystery! Studies suggest long forceps don’t come with big costs, so the evolution of short ones remains puzzling. 🤔 More info 👉 https://buff.ly/3COYcG6

submitted 63 days ago • 0 comments

a smooth-coated otter off the coast of Singapore! some fishermen were throwing in pieces of fish for these guys

submitted 64 days ago • 0 comments

can’t believe I haven’t posted an amblypygid yet… here’s a Paraphrynus species from south FL. the literature only lists P. raptator from the state, but these (and every other Floridian Paraphrynus I’ve seen) seem to conform much more to P. cubensis.

submitted 65 days ago • 1 comment

happy new year! my fav find from this year was def these undescribed Asianopis in Taiwan! found something like 12+ in one night.

submitted 69 days ago • 0 comments

maybe the coolest fossil arachnid species ever: Chimerarachne yingi and a couple different interpretations of its phylogenetic placement that were published the same day in the same journal: www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 69 days ago • 0 comments

a craaaaaazy looking owlfly nymph from Taiwan. i'd never seen a Neuropteran that looked so... predatory before this one lol.

submitted 70 days ago • 1 comment

beautiful green huntsman - Gnathopalystes taiwanensis (台灣吉遁蛛)

submitted 72 days ago • 1 comment