These are some of specimens collected by the Operation Wallacea students at @KneppWilding - Rosie (daughter of Colin ⬇️) was a student there and is now a volunteer EXTRAORDINAIRE in labelling them (over 1000 to date..) Natural History Museum NHM Diptera

New volunteers in #TeamDiptera working on malaise samples from @KneppWilding First day at the ‘scopes and everything is new and mysterious!

Back in the Natural History Museum & checking out the NHM Diptera Coll for Petroleum flies.. The last time any flies were collected from La Brea Tar Pits & donated to the museum was in 1929! Nearly a century later I have added a few more. Wonder if the new specimens are related…

Curator/Curatorial Assistant post in Diptera at Natural History Museum 🪰 Skills needed include knowledge of Diptera (preferably with calyptrates/acalyptrates), experience of specimen curation & working with museum collections 🪰 Closing date: 9am, 26th Feb 2024 careers.nhm.ac.uk/templates/CIPH…

Happy Birthday Darwin - the Natural History Museum fly collection houses many of his specimens. These 3 were collected on his travels & were new species to science👊🪰 HOLOTYPE Chrysanthrax primitivus (Walker, 1849); Acarterus darwini Sinclair, 1996; Leptoharpacticus mucius (Walker, 1849)

Presentation with Dr Will Leo Hawkes about his University of Exeter PhD exploring #fly #migration Dipterists Forum BENHS #diptera #hoverflies NHM Diptera youtu.be/r_alwE7b1do

Now back in Lima with Sivrac y Luis F Ramírez at the Museo de Historia Natural Entomología MUSM Cross pinning specimens and discussing joint projects 👊😎🤓. Collaboration is the name of the game NHM Diptera Operation Wallacea Natural History Museum

A classic early spring day on @HantsCS Danebury hillfort with Black Oil Beetle and Dotted Bee-fly in the sunshine 🤩 #OilBeetleHunt #BeeflyWatch

When a loan of undescribed material comes back looking like this! Red - Holotype Yellow - Paratype Excellent work by Tiago Krolow and colleagues, and good news for Tabanidae - 4 new species to science NHM Diptera Science at the Natural History Museum

Lowestoft Life - just about! 28th-29th May 2024 A trip down memory lane and a damp spider quest. There may be some invert pics at long last! blueeyedbirding.blogspot.com/2024/05/lowest… everything will get iRecorded too

It's #FlyFriday & in honour of Allan Cabrero, Ph.D. who has been tarsi-deep in the NHM Diptera collection sorting through bee flies, I give you the Holotype of Zinnomyia mira - as the name says, just look at it!! An adorably hirsute species described by the aptly named David Greathead

Metopia species ,satellite fly I think. Hartland Moor

Truly delighted to receive this prestigious honour - thanks to all friends and colleagues who have shared the journey! #schistosomiasis #BeatNTDs

Volucella pellucens two seen along the banks of Horner Water

Xylitol sylvarum Golden tailed leaf licker. I think.There were about twenty licking leaves In one patch up Horner Water .Maybe freshly emerged🤔 they have a wide 'tongue' they sweep back and forth across a leaf .

First sweep of the Operation Wallacea field training skills season at @KneppWilding and we have Villa cingulata - the students learn new skills, Knepp gets records & the NHM Diptera Coll gets specimens for all to compare/contrast against - both the morphology & molecular

This was the first time any of these students had erected a malaise trap! The Operation Wallacea volunteers are here developing their field skills AND NHM Diptera and @KneppWilding are gaining records about the invertebrates

Why do we need taxonomists? Naturalists? Ecologists? Because nature isn’t just a number - what species are and what they do, how they interact - everything about them - that is nature Obvs flies are the best nature Natural History Museum Royal Entomological Society British Ecological Society