@markjfbrown
Bees, ants, parasites, and pollinator conservation for work. Professor and Director of the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge University. Nature, opera, fantasy novels, family, and reading for play 🐜 🐝 🦠 🏳️🌈
So, marsupials are in the news this week, with the discovery of a new genus of possum in New Guinea. Museum specimens were key to the identification of this new species. So, here’s our lovely ring-tailed possum, a relative of the new discovery. For more, read on: theconversation.com/meet-tous-an...
IUCN updated Red List of Bees finally published: op.europa.eu/en/publicati...
Katarzyna Biala (European Environment Agency) gives a final stakeholder perspective and suggests how we can build for the future across scales and costs of action and inaction @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🪰 🦋
Delphine Depeux (European Landowners Organisation) gives a stakeholder view and landowner perspective on the context for pollinator conservation - it is a land management conversation delivered through partnership @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🪰 🦋
Her conclusions
Zafarani Uwingabire (Dijon) digs into the important detail of how world views impact effective pollinator conservation - we need to understand this to get conservation right @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🪰 🦋
Rene van der Wal (SLU): pollinators mean different things to different people, enabling multiple actors to gather; if we define the ‘right’ pollinator, we lose the chance to engage the multiple parts of society needed to generate effective conservation @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting 🐝 🪰 🦋
Now Lorenzo Marini (Uni Padua) tells us how total wild bee abundance can be a good indicator for wild species richness, and so a valuable monitoring tool, particularly for citizen/community scientists @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝
Dirk Maes (Butterfly Conservation Europe) talks about how the Grassland Butterfly Index is generated, the trends in butterfly abundance it identifies, and how to mitigate and reverse butterfly declines in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting 🦋
Simon Potts (Uni Reading) introduces understudied pressures and focuses on traffic impacts on pollinators in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting - clear recommendations to enhance pollinators (see new paper at bottom of last photo) #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰
@ingolfsteffan.bsky.social (who led the project) shows what factors in protected areas and the landscapes around them drive pollinator populations in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting - identifying drivers enable conservation actions to enhance pollinators #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰
Olli Schweiger (Leipzig) explains what factors drive large-scale distribution in bees, and how extreme climate events can drive local declines and collapse in pollinator populations - but also how we can mitigate against such dangers @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰
Niamh Phelan (IUCN) shows the red list of pollinator taxonomists in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting - saving pollinators requires pollinator experts #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰
Denis Michez (Mons University) follows up at the @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting by updating us on the status of wild bees and hover flies across Europe #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰 - key message, we now have distributional data to underpin conservation strategies for wild bees and hover flies across Europe
Andreas Gumbert (EU DG Environment) kicks off the @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting by summarising the state of European policy, driven by years of local, national, and EU-level research #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰
Macro photo of a brown stink bug in face view on a leaf, guarding a tightly-clustered bunch of eggs that are shaped and colored exactly like a full tray of dark beer with foam on top.
Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.
A baby wombat grazing on a tussock, shaped like a potato.
Baby #wombats (wombatlets) are particularly adorable when they're still in their shaped-like-a-potato phase.
#WombatWednesday #fieldwork #Tasmania #wombat #MammalWatching #WildOz
It’s World Pangolin Day tomorrow! Why isn’t there an emoji for pangolins? In its absence, here are some pangolins from the @zoologymuseum.bsky.social Museum specimens help define species distributions, aid conservation action, and make a world where we have a better chance of seeing live pangolins 😍
Absolutely! And does a very good job of it 😉
Not hugely numerous, but yes, some nice contents and displays
When your collection derives from a series of sea-borne expeditions, how do you present that? The Regional Natural History Museum in Turin came up with a great solution - this exhibition mocks up the inside of a boat, with each booth representing an expedition @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
@dollyjorgensen.bsky.social we so enjoyed your talk at the @zoologymuseum.bsky.social and so I wondered if you’d seen the bird pairs in the Zoology Museum of Turin University? No consistent height hierarchy in the displays of these birds of paradise
The zoology collection in Turin shares the same building as the herbarium, and I thought this was the most beautiful display @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
Fin whale skeleton at Turin Uni Zoology Museum
Fin whale skeleton at Cambridge University Zoology Museum
The Turin Uni Zoology Museum also has a fin whale, which is 1m longer than ours, but lacks the baleen (side by side for comparison) @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
I also really enjoyed the taxidermy in the Turin Uni Zoology Museum @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
In Turin for the @wildposh.eu AGM, and the Uni Zoology Museum was next door, so what could I do but visit at lunchtime. So, bonus museum posts coming! I loved this amazing light-enhanced elephant (definitely worth watching the whole video) @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
📢 We’re hiring!
We’re looking for an enthusiastic and highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to join our team at @funcagroeco.bsky.social
The position focuses on how collaborative agri-environment measures affect multiple taxa and ecosystem services.
See: www.uni-goettingen.de/en/vacancy+f...
Ants in a museum
Ants 🐜 are my first scientific love, so this week’s post is a reminder of the little creatures that run the world! Ants are dominant predators, herbivores, and ecosystem engineers around the planet. We couldn’t live without them. And they’re also beautiful! @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
Pride in Nature tours poster
Penguin
Giraffe skeleton
It’s LGBTQ+ 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️⚧️ History Month, so let’s celebrate diversity in nature. Our penguin 🐧 and giraffe 🦒 both represent animal groups famous for their same-sex relationships and behaviour. If you want to learn more about non-binary nature, come on one of our tours @zoologymuseum.bsky.social
New PhD alert! We'll be applying animal welfare ideas to look at how stress affects bees, looking at the effect on bee brains with @lenariab.bsky.social, and working with @sensibee.bsky.social developing new monitoring methods.
Please spread the word! #bees #PhD 🧪
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
