#Evolution of complex adaptations can involve changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. @benitoexplains.bsky.social &co show that leaf masquerade in #katydids evolved via concurrent modification in wing colour & shape, driven by evolutionary synergy @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oUE741

Leaf? 🍃 Or katydid? 🦗 Our new @plosbiology.org paper sheds light on how these incredible mimics evolved their disguises, and what this reveals about how complex adaptations arise. We find that coordinated evolution between traits might be the answer… plos.io/4oUE741 1/n

@pinpilinpauxa-aaa.bsky.social on her @wellcometrust.bsky.social photography competition entry! 👏🏻 www.instagram.com/reel/DO-j2rM... @bristolbiosci.bsky.social 🧪 #Heliconiini #evobio #neuroscience

This has got to be the #colsci paper to end all #colsci papers! Huge congratulations to @wlallen.bsky.social and Iliana Medina for this monumental effort. 🤯 Chefs kiss 🤌🏽

Happy to share that our paper on the #evolution and #genomics of the most common #color polymorphism in #frogs is now out in @pnas.org! My favorite frogs even made the cover of this week’s issue! 🎉🐸🎉 Read the paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Very proud of this extremely collaborative piece: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/... Here, we show that divergence in visual systems - in response to differences in the light environment - leads to rapid divergence in sexually selected colour traits. Work brilliantly led by Madeleine Carruthers. 🐟👀🎨

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

Go Jessie, lots of cool stuff in here 👨‍🦳👵 (NB. these emojis symbolise the concept of ageing, not Jessie herself)

Why does the idea that race is biological persist despite biology so clearly refuting it? Check out a blog @kevinlala.bsky.social and I wrote about our new article titled 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' (coauthored w/ @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marc Feldman) for some thoughts:

Thanks to those who came and chatted all things katydid camouflage at my poster on Monday! For those watching on catch-up, come and find me at the poster session on Thursday 😀🦗🍃 #ESEB2025

Amaia Alcade Anton talk on expanded mushroom bodies in Heliconius butterflies @tibbe-evolneuro.bsky.social #ESEB2025 SYMPOSIUM 17.2

Elizabeth Hodge on Heliconius enhanced visual memory + expanded mushroom bodies @tibbe-evolneuro.bsky.social #ESEB2025 session 17

Winter ASAB @asab.org on *Sensory Ecology* register and submit your abstracts now (abstract deadline just a month away)! I'm organising the conference this year with @lauraakelley.bsky.social and Innes Cuthill Register & get more info here: asabwinter.github.io/2025/

Excited to share that we have just been awarded a NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant to work on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins. We will soon advertise a 3 year post-doc to join the team - drop me an email if you might be interested! Pls share widely 🙏🏻

Our paper, led by Eva van der Heijden, shows the work of an international team combining phylogenomics, hybridisation tests, population and comparative genomics and pheromone analyses to resolve the taxonomy and evolution of two rapid radiations of glasswing butterflies. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Sam hasn’t stopped preaching about treehoppers to me since the day we first met seven years ago. Glad he’s finally managed to scratch this itch. Amazing work! 👏🏽⚡️

Wanna see what it was REALLY like collecting data in the rainforest for our recent @pnas.org paper? I made a wee video about it, on YouTube now. As usual, thanks to my amazing field-assistant-turned-camera-operator Theodora for most of the sweaty Ecuadorean mug shots… 😇 youtu.be/6jNxgvK0kU0?...

New PhD student paper! Social conformity in lateralisation in guppies onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... by Iestyn L. Penry-Williams, with Culum Brown #openaccess at @ecol-evol.bsky.social

So very excited for the magnum opus of my #PhD to finally be out in @pnas.org. 🎉🎉 We demosntrate that mutualistic co-mimicking tropical butterflies not only converge in light microhabitat but, as a consequence, have also converged in visual system morphology! 1/n😀 www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Back from sunny Costa Rica (it rained almost the entire time), helping teach the world’s second ever international #CricketCourse… that I know of. Apparently my lawn whites were not necessary in the end… 🏏🤦🏽 Learned a lot and great wildlife to boot! #fieldcourse @uniofstandrews.bsky.social

A nice unauthored tribute to Henry Walter Bates, who was born 200 years ago. Bates famously discovered "Batesian mimicry" - between palatable and unpalatable species. However, his paper "Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley" had many other firsts! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

New Preprint from the lab, and the second half of Elizabeth Hodge’s masters project - we dived into whether shifts in visual #foraging behaviours and spatial #memory in #Heliconius involved changes in sensory systems🧪 1/n

Why do imperfect mimics (such as many hoverflies) exist? We created 3D printed replicas of flies, wasps and our own custom intermediates and then "asked" various predators what they thought of our 3D stimuli. Read all about it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Take note folks: Time not spent updating your profile photo frees up a lot of time for getting a professorship… Could not be happier for Steve and for the future of the EBAB Lab. So very well deserved. 🦋🧠 Professor metamorphosis: ✅

I was promised entertaining b-roll of Sam walking through the natural history museum looking pensive but oh well, I guess I’ll have to make do with this beautiful interview instead. Big congrats @samjakeengland.bsky.social! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

🍃New preprint alert!!🍃(maybe I'll start using this app more from now on 😂). Excited for my first piece of katydidling to be released into the wild. Feedback and comments, as always, are very welcome! @uniofstandrews.bsky.social 😊 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New Scientist video about our recent cuttlefish paper. @ecologyofvision.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @matteosanton.bsky.social

Super happy to be back on BCI (Panama) for the next few months. Already received a warm welcome from some of its most spectacular inhabitants! 🏝️🦗🐸 #bci #stripanama

I’m very happy to share my first paper, and the first from my Masters, is out in Royal Society #OpenScince 🤩 w/ coauthor and supervisor @ccioannou.bsky.social 🔗 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 🧵1/12