Kevin Keegan

@mothpotato.bsky.social

1016 Followers 728 Following

I study moths so YOU don't have to. Lepidopterist at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.A. All opinions are my own.

View of the Bucco Billboard at PNC Park from the top row of the left-field stands which reads "BEST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY EVER." I stand in the foreground with arms raised, facing the camera.
Carnegie Library Lecture Hall with a man standing on stage at the podium. An illustration of a yellow and black caterpillar in a hardhat carrying an I beam (Steely McLep) projected onto the screen above the stage.
A still of the opening sequence of Silence of the Lamb's with "Jodie Foster" on screen beyond an expanse of dark and empty chairs in the Carnegie Museum of Art theater.
The author of the Butterfly and Moth Books: William Jacob Holland with red laser eyes WOO!
Electrical box on street corner with graffiti reading EAT BOX
Yellow mug with orange lettering for the Lepidopterists' meeting. Logo is a Cucullia caterpillar of convexipennis, naturally black and yellow for Pittsburgh, wearing a hardhat and carrying a steel beam. The background is a green leaf of one of its hostplants with the Pittsburgh skyline chewed into it
My dog, Tule, sleeping in a sail boat on Penobscot Bay.
America United poster above big out of order sign
A wet lab bench with equipment on it. Shelving above the bench houses (mostly) supplies for pipetting.
Many pinned and spread moths on many wooden spreading blocks. Each moth has ~pins associated with holding different body parts in place until they dry and become rigid.
A variety of items spread on a table. Boxes with pinned moths, spreading blocks, and a digital microscope with screen so the people can see how I'm spreading specimens.
Pirates up nine nothing on the Rockies after the top of the first.
Brown tarnished lamp before polishing.
Three wooden dowels with whisker sections glued to their ends.
A tiny moth on a pin with wings spread to the side. Both forewings and hindwings are somewhat ovate. Hindwings brown with muted iridescent sheen. Forewings a magnificent mixture of gold and purple scales.
An insect pin with small wasp (~1 cm long and mostly black), with whitish cocoon and brownish mummified caterpillar below it on the same pin.
The current Shouts and Murmurs from the New Yorker titled "Updated U.S. Customs and Border Protection Questionnaire."
Me very far away on a golden hillside with a white caterpillar beat sheet held camera side and mostly obscuring me. Hills rise behind me.
Close up of red, platy, exfoliating bark revealing gold-green new bark underneath.
Me up in an oak tree in an oak woodland landscape. I'm holding a white square sheet under the mistletoe and whacking the mistletoe with a stick to see what caterpillars fall off.
Screenshot of YouTube video highlights from pirates game last night. Commenter says "This was impressive. The Pirates were able to overcome both themselves and the Nationals at the same time."
Many of the structures described in the second photo in a chunk of soil.
Smoke rising in distance through trees
Marco Rubio with a happy Passover message
Two moths on a spreading board with many pins holding various appendages in place to dry.
Sheetz brand motor oil bottle spanning the ever enlarging gap between road and retaining wall above the site of a landslide two years ago
Cathedral of Learning with crowd gathered on Schenley Plaza grass in foreground
Text exchange between me and my friend that studies sack-bearer moths. He is immediately excited, and tells me just how rare this thing is.
A box with 100+ moths on insect pins with their data labels also on the pins. The moths are all sorts of sizes, shapes, and colors.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History's mascot "Dippy" the Diplodocus drawn with rear end towards the viewer, with neck craned around towards its rear and smiling. It's rear is a glorious, shiny, tail-less humanoid rump.
Me in a black winter coat taking a selfie in Spring Manor Farm fields with leafless hillside in distance
Ralph Wiggum from the Simpsons alone on the bus laughing while saying "I'm in danger."
Me standing next to an empty range in our collection
An orange moth on a white wall with it's wings folded over its back, antennae tucked away. A grey-black spiral at the base of each forewing, and reverse check marks at the end of the forewing which join together to create the appearance of a smiley face tripping on who knows what drug.
ABC6 Philadelphia live feed of the Philadelphia eagles celebration showing fans climbing some sort of truck
Matthew McConaughey from true detective smoking multiple cigarettes
............The sylvan powers Obey our summons; from their deepest dells The Dryads come, and throw their garlands wild And odorous branches at our feet; the Nymphs That press with nimble step the mountain-thyme And purple heath-flower come not empty-handed, But scatter round ten thousand forms minute Of velvet moss or lichen, torn from rock Or rifted oak or cavern deep: the Naiads too Quit their loved native stream, from whose smooth face They crop the lily, and each sedge and rush That drinks the rippling tide: the frozen poles, Where peril waits the bold adventurer’s tread, The burning sands of Borneo and Cayenne, All, all to us unlock their secret stores And pay their cheerful tribute. J. Taytor, Norwich, 1818,
Billboard in Pittsburgh reading "ABANDON SHIP, BOB! SELL THE TEAM"
Rings of octagons surrounding a central portion of lines radiating from the center of the Benedum Center Theater in Pittsburgh, PA
A specimen of Oligia Modesta from Dodge County, Nebraska.