Bugs and the breadth of human experience

Funny. There was a bug on the side of our host which roughly resembled a tick. "Too narrow", I thought. But just to be sure, I took its picture and sent it to iNaturalist. 



Their classifier agrees, not a tick. The next day, a weevil expert confirmed this identification. Who knew there were global weevil experts?

I am an insect taxonomist, whose research focuses on the weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) of New Zealand and the South Pacific and with a working knowledge of global weevil diversity. 

If you have found my identifications helpful and would like to show it financially, a thank-you card (containing original artwork) is available for purchase from https://sdjbrown.itch.io/inaturalist-gratitude-card. Proceeds will go towards purchasing books and resources for increasing my identification skills, or to support my ongoing research on weevil taxonomy.


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