Nathan T. Jones Curator

Joined: Jun 29, 2019 Last Active: Mar 27, 2024

Formerly @blastcat

Homeschooled naturalist residing on the beautiful biodiverse Delmarva Peninsula, primarily focused on Crustacea biodiversity with aspirations of becoming a career carcinologist. I have stumbled into focusing on the largest, most successful group of terrestrial crustaceans in the world, terrestrial isopods—Oniscidea. My specific focus lies in researching the biogeographical patterns and invasion biology of Oniscidea within the continental United States, and their commercial presence as a potential vector for introduction and conservation concern.

In 2023, I began amassing a terrestrial isopod collection, comprising over 1,900 specimens representing 25 species and counting. Due to the historically poor preservation and conservation of wet-specimen collections in North America, there is a paucity of historical records on the distribution of native and introduced oniscids. This has led to many of these invasions being cryptogenic with no well-defined period of establishment or spread. With the continuously increasing rate of oniscid introductions, it is my ongoing goal to mitigate the cryptogenic nature of such species' establishment and spread by amassing a synoptic collection of North American oniscid fauna. If you are interested in contributing material to aid in bringing this goal to fruition, or simply for identification, please send me a message or e-mail. (nathan.tyler.jones(at)gmail.com)

I am most familiar with Oniscidea from the Nearctic; however, I can confidently identify many species from the Palearctic. Additionally, I am attempting to improve my knowledge of Neotropical species.

You can view my publications on ReserchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nathan-Jones-69

American Isopod and Myriapod Group website


The photos I share on iNaturalist are exclusively taken and edited by me unless stated otherwise. I extend permission for others to use my CC-BY licensed photographs, under the condition that appropriate credit is given — please attribute them to Nathan T. Jones, not Blastcat. In cases where providing credit is impractical, such as in a space-constrained medium like a PowerPoint presentation, feel free to use my photos without attribution. It would be appreciated if you informed me via message or email about the intended use of my photos. I'm genuinely interested in learning about the projects to which my photos contribute.

Feel free to look through my Flickr for additional photographs.


Profile image was taken by Dr. Pallieter De Smedt.

It is my wish that all of the content I have contributed to iNaturalist (Observations, Identifications, comments, media, etc.) remain on the site in the event of my death.

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