John Schepis

Entomology PhD, University of Illinois Urban-Champaign, Pesticide Safety

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

@LilDudesAcademy Thanks for the love lil Dudes!

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

Coming up on 6 months as a real live bug Doctor for the University of Illinois.

Thanks to so many of you for helping me get here! Hopefully I can share what I’ve been working on soon!

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

@TomKuhar They know I left the state lol. Might have accidentally been helping you all out by using kentland to support my need to try and fail at starting a colony. Probably collected 4000, 2000 and 400 from your old brassica plots during the winters of 2021, 2022 and 2023.

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

@TomKuhar That insects and spiders book is still my go to. Growing up that was one of the few books I had that the binding fell off because I used it so many times.

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

Successful week at #EntSoc23 winning first for my talk on the physiology of plant bugs transitioning from weeds to cotton. What made it even better was being able to celebrate the win with my lab mate @tayloree who rocked it in the insecticide resistance section!

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

Tarnished plant bugs commonly cause injury to cotton in the summer months. In the fall, ragweeds that are ignored can often harbor plant bugs. Last Tuesday I was able to catch 1500 plant bugs in just a few hours of work. Maybe these ragweeds are more important than we think.

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

Even though I’m a bug guy, I always get excited when the cotton starts to flower. I love that I can tell time by the color of the blooms and watch them change throughout the day.

[John Schepis @bugguyjohn]

A good portion of my summer was spent watching tarnished plant bugs perform tethered flights! This one was one of my best fliers though I imagine he probably got a little dizzy.