This was a really great read!

One of my favorite specimens I have collected. The '7 year old birthday cake spider'.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park - USA 07/2023

How funny would it be if I brought in a signed 8x10 of myself for my physical therapy office ‘rehabbed athletes wall of fame’ upon completion of my PT program. What do you mean mycologists are excluded from athletic shrines? 😂

It’s exciting when a mushroom you sample in the forest gives off the same vibe in the lab! This is the orange-mat Coprinellus (Coprinellus radians) in the field versus in the petri plate. Field photo by John Plischke.

It turns out the largest organisms on Earth aren’t in the oceans, they are beneath our feet. bit.ly/3xZlCX3

Please admire this fungal culture. It’s a new species so it has no real name yet but it’s lovely nonetheless.

My arms after crutching everywhere for eight weeks while my hip heals!

And just like that my teaching has concluded for the semester. Students in my Forest Pathology / Entomology course took their final exam this morning. Good luck to all the instructors, TAs, and students as we work though our final weeks of instruction here at WVU Mountaineers and

My Monday evening was anything but typical. I attended Ed Yong’s (Ed Yong is not here) Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures hosted talk on his best selling book An Immense World. I was invited to meet Ed after his talk to say hello and discuss, among other things, zombie cicadas!

Ed is a true champion for

I had a great time interviewing Dr. Romina Gazis (Tropical Plant Clinic & Research Lab) for Episode 4 of The American Phytopathological Society’s Plantopia podcast. It’s a modern day snapshot of extension plant pathology, running a plant disease diagnostic lab, and tropical agriculture! encourage you all to give it a listen and

In our latest episode, Dr. Romina Gazis Tropical Plant Clinic & Research Lab of
FLORIDA discusses her passion for #mycology , #tropicalfruit diseases, and her Peruvian roots with host Matt Kasson, PhD 🍄🧫.

Listen here: plantopiapodcast.org/48
#PlantPathology #ScienceTalks 🍄

Trying to gauge interest in me hosting a Spaces on the zombie cicada fungus, Massospora cicadina, and its impact on this year’s emerging cicada broods! Thoughts?

Great to see my colleague and friend @[email protected] getting some press for an incredible eLife - the journal paper! So happy to have been a part of it!

Tomorrow—Myriapod Meet Up 2024: 30 April, 8AM - 5PM (EDT). This free online event will include short talks and discussion about myriapods (and other multipedes, e.g. Onychophora). #MillipedeMonday

#MushroomMonday Tolypocladium ophioglossoides - Snaketongue Truffleclub #FungiJournal

However wild you think your weekend was, this cicada nymph went harder!

If you dig cicada nymphs up in your garden, take note of whether they have black patches or not, record the date, and then record the date of the big emergence nights.

Also please photograph dug-up nymphs and later the newly emerged adults from the same ground for iNaturalist or CicadaSafari!!!

For those of you experiencing the 13-year or the 17-year periodical cicadas, don’t forget to keep an eye out for the rare blue-eyed individuals. It may not bring you fame or fortune but it’s pretty amazing to see! Here’s one I found from Brood X.

Excited to report we’ve acquired our first 50+ Massospora cicadina-infected 13-year cicadas from a collaborator in South Carolina! Infection rates of 20%+ and lots of wonderful observational data! So excited to get these Brood XIX cicadas into the lab!