Perry Beasley-Hall, PhD

New article out in The Conversation with @dr-brock-hedges.bsky.social! We described and named three new species of cave cricket, one being the first known use of a Gundungurra word in Western #taxonomy. #bugsky theconversation.com/ever-seen-a-...

"For most students and staff the university experience can be summarised by the slogan of a certain burger chain, proclaiming “billions served”. A drive-thru education fosters AI because it sucks all the satisfaction from learning and teaching." #HigherEd theconversation.com/friday-essay...

A new study has found a species of #jumpingspider experiences at least two sleep stages, including one resembling REM. 🥹🕷️ #entomology #arachnology www.abc.net.au/news/science...

GReG is an international initiative co-led by members of the ISB Lab to advance the application of #eDNA in #groundwater. A lot has happened since the project's launch last year - read about its big milestones below! 💧🧬🦐🪲

"We estimate that $3.7 billion was spent on APCs in 2025, of which 87% went to five publishers—Elsevier, Springer Nature, MDPI, Wiley, and Frontiers. Global spend has quadrupled in seven years, even after adjusting for inflation." #openaccess #publishing #academia arxiv.org/abs/2608.16322

The 13th annual international Gender Census 2026 is now open until at least 13th August 2026! survey.gendercensus.com It's for anyone whose gender (or lack thereof) isn't described by the M/F binary. It's short and easy, and results are useful in academia, business and self-advocacy. #LGBTQ

✨REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW OPEN!✨ Join us in December for 🧬𝗘𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝗻𝗴🧬- A joint conference by Australasian Evolution Society (AES) and The Society of Australian Systematic Biologists (SASB)🤝. Register at this link: aes.corsizio.com/portal/aes Follow the thread for Key Rego Dates (1/1)

Drs Perry Beasley-Hall and Danielle Stringer have been awarded prestigious grants on the #taxonomy and #systematics of understudied Australian invertebrates. #bugsky invertebratelab.com/2026/05/28/g...

Research Assistant job - Lantau buffalo. Only suitable for a person already based in HK. www.cityu.edu.hk/hro/en/job/c... Further information - water buffalo research: www.hkbuffaloresearch.org

Members of the ISB lab recently described the first known eyeless wasp, discovered mummified in a remote cave on the Nullarbor Plain. #bugsky invertebratelab.com/2026/04/30/n...

ugh, this is sick, terrible stuff some of us only have ONE ring of keys?? You want us to CHOOSE between Anomalocaris and Opabinia???

The disappearance of formal #taxonomy training for undergrads could hobble the development of medical and agricultural AI systems that rely on biological data. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

To my non tech normies, PSA: when you share a link, everything after the ? is tracking. Those “query parameters” tell companies exactly how you arrived, what app you clicked, which ad or email sent you, sometimes a unique identifier tied to you. You can delete everything after the question mark.

Moths...? But something's a little off...? #stickerwip #stickers #etsyartist #lunamoth #moths

#NewPaper alert! What factors affect incursions of non-native invertebrates across Australia's borders? 9 years of interception data show arrivals follow trade, travel, and seasonality... but species diversity still isn’t plateauing. #bugsky invertebratelab.com/2026/04/13/n...

New from my colleagues in the @invertebratelab.bsky.social! Paper out today. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

All the heart eyes for these tiny wonders 😍⁠ ⁠ Many animals that live in the dim waters of the ocean’s twilight zone have evolved powerful eyes to detect prey, mates, and predators in the dark. Hyperiid amphipods have developed remarkably diverse eyes, each with different functional capabilities.

Not all "cave" crickets live in caves - this new species is just as happy in tree hollows and wombat burrows. Living in Outer Melbourne's green wedges, it's threatened by urban sprawl. Paper coming soon. #bugsky 📸: Reiner Richter, David Illiff

Some of my favorite Orthoptera portaits I've taken in recent years. Katydids along with mantids have to be some of the most photogenic of all the insects. #katydid #grasshopper #cricket #insect #macro #nature #wildlife #bugsky #photography

This rather fantastic Black-footed Gondwanan Katydid (Metholce nigritarsis) was a recent visitor to our Perth Hills moth light. These amazing Katydids have been recorded in all states around Australia except the NT. #ausinverts #wildoz #Orthoptera #Katydid #inaturalist #nature #bugsky

The Biodiversity Heritage Library is turning 20! 🎉 We’re starting celebrations with a special anniversary blog series #BHLat20: Treasures from BHL, featuring remarkable works chosen by the people who know them best: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/03/cele... #ILoveBHL

Our lab is growing! We have new lab members joining us to work on micro-wasps, eyeless spiders, and cave crickets. Read on below to hear about their research. #bugsky 🐝🕷️🦗 invertebratelab.com/2026/03/24/welcome-new-lab-members

**TIL about Justin O. Schmitt, an entomologist, who developed a pain scale for the stings of Hymenoptera. Wow, Justin, you were definitely doing gawd’s work. I’m sad that I never met you. Check out the incredible graphic by @atlasobscura.com

On #TaxonomistAppreciationDay I want to highlight some of the recent new species that I've described along with colleagues, many are from the global south where much of this diversity is from (and still awaits discover). First up, two species of herb gall wasps and a parasitoid from Sichuan, China.

computer graphics (1996) www.mobygames.com/game/598/the...

Jackie Chan’s Official Home Page in 1995

things keep changing / we will, too 💫

Yes. Taxonomy is very much in danger of dying out. Simply because other scientists don't understand its importance and there is very little money for doing this work. 1/n www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The caves of the Nullarbor Plain are fragile time capsules of biodiversity, supporting species found nowhere else on Earth. While it sounds good on paper, the proposed "green" energy hub will destroy this ancient ecosystem. Please consider signing. #SaveTheNullarbor change.org/p/save-the-nullarbor

Our postdoc @dr-ewilliamson.bsky.social's recent PhD study on an Australian native solitary bee, Megachile tosticauda, challenged a longheld assumption in insect biology: that all bees rely on a functional gut #microbiome. So what happens if it's missing? #bugsky invertebratelab.com/2026/02/24/a...

Did you know gum blossoms don't just attract bees - Australia's eucalypts rely on a huge range of species for pollination! Stay tuned for more stories about #OurEucalyptHome in the lead up to National Eucalypt Day on March 23rd! Cartoon in collaboration with @eucalyptaus.bsky.social!

How do you intend to clone a live moa if you can’t even be bothered to draw one? Really sums up how seriously we should take these people.

The ASPS has come out against trans youth surgical care. The AMA then endorsed the ASPS. Meanwhile, WPATH's president-elect testified on behalf of a detransitioner who won their case. And hospitals capitulate to Trump. I write my indictment of the American medical system on trans youth care.

I know it’s intentional but we should stop calling everything AI, lumping useful machine learning techniques for science with large language models that tech companies are trying to cram into everything.

Tucked in little claws 🦀 A crab sitting like a cat loaf. So cute𓈒𓏸︎︎︎︎

What's that you say! It was all just fear pushing by bad faith groups and that trans women pose no threat to cisgender women. www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

Highlights from #Edinburgh cemeteries last week: Male Pale Brindled Beauty, Ocys quinquestriatus (nationally scarce), cluster of 2-spot, Harlequin, 10-spot & Cream-spot Ladybirds & Buchananiella continua with Anthocoris nemorum. #insects #CemeteryWildlifeWatch recording activity on #iRecord.

The infamous human bot fly (Dermatobia hominis). This specimen is from a rainforest in Honduras, deposited at the Biological Museum, Lund University. [MZLU 00131504] #Diptera #Oestridae 🪰

Recently got a copy of the out-of-print #Dune Encyclopedia (1984) and am obsessed with the design of these tarot cards. These are the only ones there are illustrations for, but the entire major arcana is described in-text. The book even provides sample spreads for divination!

Taxonomists, which names are you workshopping right now? For this cave cricket I'm thinking aedituens (temple-keeper). Found in the same caves as the oldest known fossils of coral reef fish, so I like the idea of it "guarding" them and their memory. #bugsky #taxonomy 📷: Hannah Zurcher

These three stories were all published this week. Abolishing ICE is a reproductive justice issue

It can get lower!

First, the Board decided not to implement motions passed by members to make trans rights a key focus of this year's festival - intended as a response to rising persecution in the US. Now, the only openly trans director has not only been censured by the Board but also misgendered in the process.

The last thing we need right now is a reason for MAHA/MAGA to discredit science further. Please, for the love of microscopes, don’t cite shit you haven’t read.

That peanut worm is a little too exciting for me you got anything else?