And a new species for the collection!

A beautiful bee from our collection—a male Agapostemon splendens (Halictidae)—appropriately named!

#PERCBugs

We are excited to share our new logo—featuring Nicrophorus americanus, once "frequent" in Indiana, today no longer found in the state, highlighting the importance of collections work!

Today, the specimens which Blatchley used in his "Coleoptera" are part of our collection—& still a source of new information on our local beetles!

New logo, now new stickers-the American Burying Beetle is actual size on these!

An unidentified CA weevil collected in 1888—on the pin you see a type of vivid green corrosion called verdigris—a reaction between the metals used in very old pins & drawer microclimate —can be a serious problem, but only a tiny % of our specimens are impacted #PERCBugs

While sorting, moving, & rehousing part of our slide collection this week we came across these intricate brown lacewing wings (Neuroptera: Hemerobiidae) #PERCBugs

Always neat to see what entomologists have used to hold/preserve samples—like this box of scale insects & host plants from 1914 in Purdue Entomological Research Collection (PERC)! #PERCBugs

Thanks to Mathew Dittmann for donating these well-prepared, identified ants!

This specimen was collected by W.S. Blatchley —his brief label only gives “R.P.P. Fla. ... 3-25-24”—but an unpublished manuscript, “Winter & Spring Insects of Royal Palm Park,” includes more details (under a synonymous name, N. viridimicans)—beetles were “beaten from dead limbs”

Thanks to Jake Goldner for vouchering specimens from his dissertation research—nearly 1,700 Ebony Jewelwing damselflies (Calopteryx maculata) with digitized data!

New unit trays—Thanks BioQuip Products! Now to curating!

"These creatures are invaluable narrators of environmental change. They are also, unfortunately, victims of the very trends they can identify—and they are now fading at a disturbing pace from freshwater streams, rivers and lakes around the world." washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/…

Where did the time go? It's #TenebTuesday! Here's a jumble of Platydema ruficornis (Sturm, 1826) from Purdue Entomological Research Collection (PERC)'s collection—I love the mix of preparation & labeling styles

With this species in the news here's a historic specimen of the Giant Lacewing, Polystoechotes punctata (Fabricius, 1793)—collected in 1895 from Greene County, Indiana by W.S. Blatchley, now housed in Purdue Entomological Research Collection (PERC)

We are leaving for bluer skies—find us at bsky.app/profile/purdue… !