Beetles Ink @beetlesink - Tumblr Blog

Gleefully crafting an “insect colors” display that doesn’t center FRIGGIN BUTTERFLIES

Having a romp in the hemimetabolous zone this morning

Struggling beneath the knowledge that a Mr. “C. Krautwurm” visited Florida in 1912 and expended great effort to collect hundreds of odonates, each of which has been meticulously labeled “dragonflys”

This is worse than V. B. Wigglesworth, you can’t just waltz in here with a name like that

Completely replacing some of the older displays, good bug times. Love to fiddle around with actual specimens for a few days instead of editing spreadsheets and word docs

#insects #natural history #ascalaphus #beetles #bugs

The problem with working in a museum is that no one ever throws anything away. I understand, tho, sometimes that century-old box of random papers has treasure in it.

#entomology #natural history #art #lepidoptera

cnestus

Wood’s jewel scarab (Chrysina woodii) from Arizona

onenicebugperday

African woolly chafers, genus Sparrmannia, Melolonthinae, Scarabaeidae

Photo 1 by rjbasson, 2-3 by alexdreyer, 4 by renecarbonaio, 5 by riana60, and 6 by hrodulf

Uh oh it’s euchromiines

#moths #lepidoptera #don’t tell the other coleopterists

bedupolker

Old Man Weevleton

More of them

We decided the layout needed more crab

Today I learned about: shrimp whitening

A historical crustacean taxonomist technique that produces b/w photos indistinguishable from SEMs, honestly this rules

Assembling the creatures

#miscellaneous #arthropods

beetlesink

Diffraction gratings babyyyy

stay-rayney

Ohhhh this is cool because it's actually two diffraction gratings on the wings! Beetle skin(?)(im not an entomologist only a physicist) has itty bitty tiny ridges kinda like fingerprints but smaller which make the diffraction rainbows happen

You can also see this interference pattern on the head of the beetle in the first post.

So what's cool about these beetles is on top of having the fingerprint rainbow diffraction grid, they also have this pringles diffraction grid, which on its own isn't capable of tasting the rainbow in the visible spectrum, but is capable of spreading that rainbow bigger. Like look at the wings. The rainbow/space/central bright light/space/rainbows is from spread out interference peaks. You can see it in the non pringles part of the beetle,but its. Smaller.

All in all, I pronounce this beetle one ridgy boi

beetlesink

Now THAT’s what I like to see, my actual figure from my actual paper getting used correctly in context :3

Also realizing I need to start using “pringles” in more talks

Diffraction gratings babyyyy

#beetles #photonics #carabidae

Shrew wizard summoning breakfast. This is @bowelfly fan art