James Robertson, PhD
Lover of biodiversity, beetles, stick and leaf insects, evolution, pigeon racing and food.
PI Insect Molecular Systematics Diagnostics Lab, APHIS. Views my own.
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDThis is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhD
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDNew paper out today on hippocampus neuron morphology in homing and feral pigeons. 🧵 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #neuroskyence #neuroethology #anatomy
- Beautiful ☺️
- 🤯
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDI get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDThe buff-tip moth (Phalera bucephala) has mastered a very particular kind of camouflage. When they close their wings up, they resemble a broken twig. Native to large parts of Europe, there's regional pattern variation that reflects the local tree species. This one best resembles birch twigs?
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDMolecular evolution of dietary shifts in ladybirds 🐞 expansions of digestive & detoxifying #gene families in the herbivorous ladybirds, & absence of most plant cell wall-degrading enzymes in the ladybirds from the transition to carnivory link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDSINGER, our ARG inference method, is finally published and freely available online: doi.org/10.1038/s415... It was a long journey – 16 months from initial submission to acceptance. Is it just me, or has peer review gotten more arduous lately? 4+ rounds of review isn't so unusual these days...
- Unparalleled aerial agility and control
- Dragonflies use “crazy turning” to dry themselves off after a cooling dip in water. Learn more on #NationalWildlifeDay: scim.ag/3Vw2Df1
- Speechless
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- Holy smokes!!!
- Say hello to Florida's newest established species, Typhlonectes natans - the Rio Cauca Caecilian! You can read about their relative abundance, distribution, & natural history, in our brand new paper: journals.ku.edu/reptilesanda... Here is one individual I CT scanned that had 7 babies inside!
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDBREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.
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- Bro can’t take a hint
- Guess I’ll need to call in sick today.
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- This woman definitely has a man in her life. Nothing says “I’m taken” quite like the copious use of tape in repairs.
- Subtle, but so cool.
- No one does Easter eggs quite like stick and leaf insects do www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...
- Not sure about the Easter Bunny, but the Easter Beetle is definitely real
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- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDA tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die. Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDIt is uniquely awe-inspiring to witness simple acts of living in the wild, such as this slender salamander I observed recently munching on springtails in the San Gabriel Mts near LA. ♥️🌎 Black-bellied Slender Salander (Batrachoseps nigriventris) Springtail sp., likely Ptenothrix maculosa #herps
- Gorgeous!!
- Well that’s sucky news. I’ve used CIRPES to run phylogenetic/evolutionary analyses from grad school to present. Such an important computational resource for the evolutionary biology community. What a loss. 😢
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- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDTo mark Hubble's 21st anniversary, astronomers captured Arp 273, a stunning pair of interacting galaxies 300 million light-years away in Andromeda. The larger galaxy, UGC 1810, displays a rose-like shape due to gravitational interactions with its companion, UGC 1813. Credit: NASA, ESA, (STScI/AURA)
- A nice Macrolepiota I came across last fall.
- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDOnce, in Gorongosa NP, I thought that I had found Halucinogenia, a near-mythical Cambrian animal with spikes on its back. The creature turned out to be a caterpillar of Acridotarsa melipecta who lives as an inquiline in the colonies of the termite Schedorhinotermes lamanianus. Still cool, though.
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- Reposted by James Robertson, PhDThis is the most relevant article to NIH and research cuts I’ve seen. Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !” globalnews.ca/news/9793403...
- Shoot. A healthier brain with a snort? Sign me up
- Spectacular!
- One more from my Borneo archives, because frankly, living in the past seems like a good idea right now. See the grasshopper? Look for the "holes" in the leaf - they're actually solid but transparent exoskeleton. I've shared this before elsewhere, but I don't think here. Even if, worth a re-post. 🐙🌿📷
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- Spectacular!
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