Curator of all the flies that aren't Flies @ the Natural History Museum, London 🌍 Instagram: benpricepix
London
Based in United Kingdom
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I wouldn't want to be an ant, those larvae are pretty fierce! Here's one from the @NHM_SmallOrders @NHM_Science collection. #MayThe4thBeWithYou @MarkHamill
✨May the Fourth be with you✨ (in advance!)
Did you know that the sarlacc, first seen in Return of the Jedi (1983), is real? Well, sort of.
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I've found this paper which compared different pre-filtering pores sizes and found 200um was pretty good, and that 2 or more paper coffee filters may work too. Definitely going to try that! journals.plos.org/plosone/ar…
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Hi #eDNA community! What pre-filtering approaches do you use when filtering really turbid water? Any chance they work with a luer lock encapsulated filter? #metabarcoding #DNA #freshwater #marine
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Great to see our preprint out: teaching machines to measure 180,000 butterflies from the @NHM_London collection, turns out they are very good at it!
Applying computer vision to digitised natural history collections for climate change research: temperature-size responses in British butterflies biorxiv.org/cgi/content/shor… #bioRxiv
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Might be worth a look, but the slow bit is the vial handling, barcode label adding and curatorial issues that crop up with such old and varied collections. Speeding up the imaging isn't going to fix those bottlenecks...
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Or just take them for a gentle spin... Admittedly I didn't use Lego, but I did use a £20 usb powered rotating stand, paper straw and tape = less fun but easier image processing 🤣
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Considering I put my cereal into my coffee machine this morning I probably shouldn't be doing lab work today. Oh well, time to get the long awaited "Macroinvert Ringtest" underway!!!
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Hey #eDNA community, what water sampling method do you use? In 2017 we used Sterivex 0.22um filters with a 50ml syringe for 2L river water and my hands have only recently recovered 🤣 Comments, pics, links, papers appreciated! #UKDNAWG #metabarcoding #DNA
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Nice work! Where did you get the metal blending container from? Would be good to upgrade our setup and get my smoothie maker back from the lab 🤣🤣. @LyndallPereira and I are about to use it again for the macroinvert ring test with our fearless leader @rosiecblackman
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Tiny male jumping spider (Euophrys frontalis) found on my office wall, barely 4mm long. Photographed on a black perspex mirror.
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Great to see so much progress!! For the blended samples did you pick out the inverts first and which extraction kit? @LyndallPereira and I got great taxon coverage from really messy kicknet samples without any picking and powersoil Max kits.
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Really excited that this project has started and all this #freshwater #biodiversity data is now being mobilised!
We're currently taking part in two @SynthesysEU #VirtualAccess projects, which involve digitising certain specimens and collections to help tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Read more about it in our latest blog! naturalhistorymuseum.blog/20… #Digitisation #Digitization
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Eye of newt! A palmate newt from my pond this summer, taken in a homemade photo aquarium. Apparently those ingredients in Macbeth are code words and eye of newt is just mustard seed! Next up toe of frog...
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Which one is the reflection? A reflecting pond olive mayfly from September. The only ovoviviparous mayfly in Europe!
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Fluffed up robin on a very cold morning yesterday. You might even say it's a Brrrd!
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Heron fly-by from yesterday. Over the holidays I mounted a red dot sight onto my 300mm lens which really helps track fast moving subjects!
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Olympus 300mm + 2x TC, Lumix G9
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Fly! More precisely a hoverfly. It was fun trying to photograph these in the garden last spring, they hover in place for long enough to line them up but then moved off before I could take the photo!
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A minute mushroom, doing it's bit to recycle a very large tree trunk!
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Whizzing wasps - my alternative to busy bees! A stack of several images to better reflect the constant stream of wasps at their nest entrance. Taken with the Olympus 300mm lens and the Lumix G9 remote controlled by my phone - I wasn't keen on getting stu… instagr.am/p/CJrff3SgXgK/
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A warm afternoon robin to brighten up a rather cold and bleak January!
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A thick-legged flower beetle (Oedemera nobilis) from summer, reflecting on a "black mirror" - made by spray painting a perspex sheet with matt black paint.
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A 3mm long pseudoscorpion from my garden this summer. It's easy to overlook local wildlife - especially at this scale, but as we say back in South Africa: local is lekker!
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Here's looking ahead to a better year! I've been chasing a nice kestrel photo for a while now and I'm very happy with this one - handheld at an effective focal length of 1200mm with the Lumix G9, Olympus 300mm and 2x teleconverter!
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The roly-poly or pill-bug - not only does it have a funny name, but unlike most of the rest of the multicellular organisms here on earth it has both circular and linear mitochondrial DNA at the same time!
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A southern hawker dragonfly still going strong on a cold autumn day in the New Forest. I've recently spotted a larva in my pond and hope to see it emerge next year!
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A morning robin from the New Forest. Called robin redbreast since the 15th century here in the UK - red because orange wasn't in the English language at the time!
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One of only 6 native lizards in the UK, this slow worm didn't live up to its name and gave me very little time to photograph it in the garden. Despite looking like snakes, slow worms are actually legless lizards!
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Already wishing it was summer again with the damselflies flitting about my pond!
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This is the result of a kestrel flying at me when I'm in the wrong focus mode....every day is a school day 🙃 Thankfully I got a couple other shots of barn swallows that were keepers instagram.com/p/CFy2hb9Acvd/…
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Barn swallows spend part of their lives in 🇿🇦 and part in 🇬🇧 - just like me! Had a fantastic view of these chicks being fed in preparation for their incredible migration, they should be arriving in 🇿🇦 just about now!
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This Zebra jumping spider certainly lived up to her name and wouldn't sit still!
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A British bunny - they came over with the Normans in the 11th century, although bone fragments suggest it was the Romans who brought the first bunny here 1000 years earlier!
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When it comes to wasps are you a wafter, stay stiller or total panicker? I'm mostly a stay stiller but have been known to escalate my response! These median wasps aren't aggressive so just let them get about their business..
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📷 Lumix G9+ Olympus 300… instagr.am/p/CFRRFYOg14J/
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Red Kite - initially protected by a royal decree for it's cleaning services, then relentlessly persecuted, it became extinct in England and Scotland, with a few individuals hanging on in Wales. Thanks to legal protection and reintroduction it's now doing… instagr.am/p/CFEhv0IgYQl/
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"There's no limit to how much you'll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go." Dr. Seuss
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📷 Pentax K1 + 150-450mm 🇿🇦 2016
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Shoot for the moon...made easy, even handheld, with the 📷 Lumix G9 + Olympus 300mm.
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Great fun testing micro 4/3 setup. Lumix G9 paired with Olympus 300mm (pigeon) and swipe for Panasonic 100-400 (sparrow). Cracking camera and lenses!
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Great to see this paper out and can't wait to get this sort of data at a much larger scale across southern Africa. @iBOLConsortium @NHM_Science @NHM_Molecular
Long since due, but thanks to the dedication of the authors and the invaluable comments from reviewers, the first SAFFMAP paper is out!!! May this be a happy beginning for some great future work with @HMBarberJames @ento_ben @LyndallPereira dx.doi.org/10.1002/edn3.116
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This week's entry in the #lockdown lipsync family challenge, with Louise and @LyndallPereira: youtu.be/0Rduf4xeOIw
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Definitely an owlfly. Possibly Tmesibasis rothschildi - here's an image of a syntype from our collection for comparison.
Southern yellow-billed hornbill. There may be quite a few images of this inquisitive bird coming up, so I'll try intersperse them with other wildlife. Nakavango, Vic Falls 🇿🇼 2017
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Pentax K1 + Sigma 180mm macro
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Monday done....home time! Lilac-breasted roller, Nakavango, Vic Falls 🇿🇼 2017
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Pentax K1 + 300mm
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@ncp_vicfalls ift.tt/2HUMSbG
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Either an African mourning or Cape turtle dove winging it on an early morning game drive. Nakavango, Vic Falls 🇿🇼 2017
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Pentax K1 + 300mm
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@ncp_vicfalls ift.tt/2Pi5aYP
If looks could kill! Cape glossy starlings have the most intense stare 📷 2016, Kruger 🇿🇦
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Pentax K1 + 150-450mm
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Why did the buffalo cross the road? We didn't get out and ask... 📷 2016, Kruger 🇿🇦
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Pentax K1 + 150-450mm
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Wildebeest or Gnu! Famous for their mass migration in East Africa, here's a less adventurous one from our 2016 trip to Kruger 🇿🇦
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Pentax K1 + 150-450mm
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Milkyway over our safari tent. Tamboti tented camp, Kruger. Can't wait to return in April! 📷 from 2016 🇿🇦
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Pentax K1 + Samyang 15mm
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Lilac-breasted roller - one of the most colourful birds in Kruger. 📷 2016 🇿🇦
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Pentax K1 + 150-450mm
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Milkyway at Tamboti tented camp. Kruger 2016 🇿🇦 Pentax K1 + Samyang 14mm
#Nature #Outdoors #YourShotPhotographer #EarthCapture #ig_Africa #Pentax #AfricaGeoPhoto #Kruger #Safari #OnlyAfrica #PentaxiansUnite #Raw_Africa_ #AfricanAmazing #AfricaNature #Wi… ift.tt/2SRgKL8
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Hey #DNA tweeps! What's the easiest way to get the genes (can be partial fragments) available in @enasequence for a (long) list of taxa? I have the TaxIDs.....asking for a friend.... Help me @DNAquaNet
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Impala are often overlooked when on a game drive, but I think they are quite stunning! Kruger 2017 🇿🇦
Pentax K1 + 150-450mm
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