Ever seen a bug pic & wished the photographer flipped the bug so you could see the underside? Wonder where leg go? Wing confuse? Mouth many parts? Introducing "Bug Pics for Art Refs™" where I compile bug pics that have helped me in my own art projects.

I scour the internet and my own files for bug refs all the time anyway. As per @sohkamyung's idea, it's probably better to have a public collection that others can use. Right now I've only compiled my own photos, but I will go through other people's photos when I have their permission!

If you're not familiar with iNat, the biggest reason why I started this collection there is that you could do taxonomic search! Do you specifically need slug moths? Search Limacodidae. Need more of the genus Narosa? You can do that. It's really helpful for comparative work.

If you find these photos useful, please respect the photographers' rights and give credits where they're due! (rn it's just me tbh but more photographers' work is incoming—check back later for more)

Greetings, chordate comrades.

#InverteFest is officially here. We invite you to nerd out about invertebrates for an entire week on whichever social platform you're on. Feel free to reupload this image to spread the word!

Can't find critters in the wild?

Show us: - Your pet snail - Your Vivillon collection - That scifi book about sentient clams - Your OC based on a parasitic nematode - That game where you played as a crab with a sword

Feel free to come up with your own idea, we don't gatekeep fun!

Want to contribute to community science?

If you have an iNaturalist account, you could contribute by surveying your local critters! Join the project using this link.

Note that only photos taken between 24-30 April your LOCAL time will be counted!

The time frame and project URL will vary each season, but I plan on reblogging this post each season and updating the dates and links.

For the full explanation in screen reader-friendly format, go to invertefest.com

Still life from an apocalypse

Though the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous devastated plants as it did animals, the flora that eventually covered South America afterward resemble the species we have today.

One site in Bogotá, Colombia, preserved leaves from familiar plant families like moonseeds, legumes, palms, spurges, and many others.

Though the fossil insects of South America are less well-known, leaf beetles and various true bugs like stink bugs and cicadas already coexisted and interacted with the plants back then.

Watch the video from PBS Eons.

Auroralumina attenboroughii

A 560 million years old goblet-shaped organism interpreted as a cnidarian—relative of jellyfishes and sea anemones.

The species is named after David Attenborough, who studied near where the fossil was found in Leicestershire.

Charnwood Forest

Leicestershire, England, circa 560 million years ago. A fossil found here in 1956 by a local, Tina Negus, turned out to be the first solid evidence that complex lifeforms existed before the Cambrian Period. Subsequent discoveries hint that the site was a deep-water environment hosting a myriad of organisms.

6 years, 9 posters. is it time for a 10th? there's been a lot of weirdness in the roster so far. is it time to return to the basics and do "normal" animals like moths? beetles? corals?

prints and stuff

Timorocidaris

a stalkless crinoid/sea lily from the Permian Period of Timor Island. 110,000 fossils of its mushroom-shaped body have been found, but little is known about it.

Its arms are never preserved, but many fossils have three stumps where they might've attached.

Aegirocassis

Aegirocassis

Prodryas persephone

is the first fossil butterfly found in North America. To date, it is one of, if not the best preserved fossil butterfly ever found. Its four wings are found intact, with pattern and venation visible.

Its closest living relatives are said to be the African admiral butterflies Hypanartia and Antanartia.

It’s time for spoods.

12 spoods from my backyard and other places around my neighborhood.

Prints here

This is an animal.

Monobrachiocrinus is a one-armed crinoid, a marine animal related to living feather stars (and sea stars). Several species have been found in Permian rocks, aged 252+ million years, in Southeast Asia all the way to New Zealand.

Reference

Greetings, chordate comrades.

I’m attempting to export yet another culture we’ve had for the past few years on the dying birdsite. Basically three times a year we’d use the hashtag #InverteFest to post unsolicited bug and slug pics and YELL ABOUT HOW MUCH WE LOVE THEM.

It could be pics from your garden, OCs, doodles, shitposts, crab memes, whatever. Just remember this is strictly a NO BONE ZONE.

But if you’re going out and feeling like contributing to community science, we have a project on iNaturalist for you to join.

See you in late December.

Ascaulocardium armatum

Fossil clams that built a case around their body, with bizarre pipe-like protrusions sprouting all over the place like a human heart that grew too many arteries.

Read the paper

On the fourteenth day of #Crustmas, my true love gave to me Fourteen Shinkaia adapted to the crushing pressure and oppressive darkness

Read the paper | Buy the poster

Utaurora comosa, the second known opabiniid

This fossil from Utah is named after Aurora (Roman goddess of dawn who turned her lover into a cicada – a modern arthropod).

The species name comosa reflects the ‘hairy’ appearance of the dorsal surface, and tail fan composed of many ‘leaves’.

This artwork was done last year but never posted here. I thought it’s appropriate to do it now, since I also just posted Mieridduryn.

Read the paper

On the thirteenth day of #Crustmas, my true love gave to me Thirteen Phalangiopsis with incredibly, unnecessarily, overly lengthy leggy 

Read the paper | Buy the poster

On the twelfth day of #Crustmas, my true love gave to me Twelve Cretagalathea from the shallows of Morocco

Read the paper | Buy the poster

I know you dweebs are too cool for the dying birdsite but we had a whole week long event called #InverteButtWeek there and I'm moving this image here for posterity. Behold,

~*•%The Butt Political Spectrum%•*~

tag yourself I’m bug chaotic

On the eleventh day of #Crustmas, my true love gave to me Eleven Paralithodes king crabs, neither real kings nor true crabs

Read the paper | Buy the poster