So excited to have received an #HFSPResearchGrant to study trilobite eyes with Luke Parry @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social and Gil Ju Lee (Pusan National University)!🥳 I'll be recruiting a postdoc @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - if 3D data, optical modelling, and fossils tickle your interest, stay tuned!

Thank you all! Also big thanks to @russellgarwood.co.uk and experienced HFSP-ers @mikebok.bsky.social, Dan Speiser, and Carsten Lüter for their advice on the proposal 💛

From our new paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol... w/ @neurofishh.bsky.social @gkafetzis.bsky.social @denilsson.bsky.social Looking across animals, the vertebrate eye is an obvious outlier. Why is it so different that other highly visual animals?

Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social! A dive into the deep history of vertebrate vision, together with @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social Photo credit : Vasilis Karkalas

My collaborator at University of Copenhagen, Anders Garm, is looking for a 3 year postdoc to work on bioluminescence, neurobiology and ecology of ctenophores. More information here: candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Ever wanted to know how the visual system of a long distance migratory moth looks like? Then you'll find your answers in our new paper. Finally out, after about a decade of collecting data by a group af amazing co-authors. Find it here, open access: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Thanks so much to ASAB and the #ASABwinter2025 organisers for a cracking conference. Not sure why I’m so excited here, I guess the yoghurt and granola had just been served…

Some more shenanigans on the Ctenophora Porifera debate from @rcply.bsky.social academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Big congratulations to our biology researchers @cnilsson.science and @mikebok.bsky.social – who get @erc.europa.eu Consolidator grants! Well deserved! 👏👏👏 Read the full story: www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/thre...

Listening and #gazing at the first keynote talk from @mikebok.bsky.social from Lund University at the #biophdday_ku at @ucph.bsky.social. So interesting to hear and see the diversity of visual sensory organs from different invertebrates!

Congrats Staffan Bensch, @mikebok.bsky.social, Yedra Garcia Garcia, Dennis Hasselquist, Prof. Anders Hedenström, Lina Herbertsson, Sebastian Marquardt, Erik Selander, Ernö Vinzce, Prof. Eric Warrant, Dan-Dan Zhang and @kruthsatz.bsky.social – all awarded grants from @vetenskapsradet.bsky.social!

..with a huge payoff, in gradual steps: ✅Choice of right depth ✅Body Posture ✅Visually - guided locomotion, eventually 7/n

Extremely grateful to @wellcometrust.bsky.social @vetenskapsradet.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu @hfspo.bsky.social @ukri.org @leverhulme.ac.uk @thelisterinstitute.bsky.social for their generous support of our eye evolution endeavours 👁️🦗🐋

Very excited about our new preprint, led by @gkafetzis.bsky.social /w @mikebok.bsky.social & @denilsson.bsky.social. We suggest that the vertebrate 'duplex' retina emerged from interconnecting two ancient median-eye microcircuits. Say goodbye to the 'simplex' retina - it probably never existed!

Most bilaterians keep photoreceptor types separate. But vertebrate eyes are a mash-up: 🪡Ciliary (rods & cones) and 💈Rhabdomeric (ganglion, amacrine, horizontal) …all packed into a multilayered circuit. 2/n

👁️The retina — strikingly conserved across vertebrates, but an oddity among bilaterians! So how did it evolve? With @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social, we argue that retinal complexity may 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑦𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/n

Fresh(ish) from the week at BESSY II @helmholtz.de looking at the changes associated with eye loss in spiders! Not pictured: our valiant night shifters, @mikebok.bsky.social, Karla Lopez Reyes, and Constance Coubris 💪🏼🌃

Very excited and proud to finally share this story! 🐙 We discovered surprising roles for dopamine and acetylcholine in the Octopus visual system… doi.org/10.1101/2025...

I know there's a 𝒍𝒐𝒕 going on right now, but I couldn’t be prouder to share this long-incubated labor of love: the complete connectome of the male 𝐷𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑎 optic lobe 🧠🪰 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Super excited to have received a @hfspo.bsky.social grant with with @neurofishh.bsky.social for our proposal: Eyes inside out: Visual coding without a multilayered retina in squid and worms.

oh INTERESTING! So apparently this FOUR EYED thing is a consistent anomaly cross different strombid taxa ?!?#molluscmonday www.inaturalist.org/observations...

“We are losing sight of the academic mission: to think, to enquire, to design and perform new research, to innovate, to teach and communicate our findings for the purpose of societal improvement” academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

A fun case of usual-unusual: Most luminescence in the sea is blue-green, but Tomopteris worms emit yellow light. With Warren Francis, we found a species that emits blue light — unusual but usual. 🦑🧪 link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-016-3028-2 doi.org/10.1002/bio.2671

A polychaete worm with tiny googly eyes, drifting in the great blue.

New issue of Ecology chose one of my pictures as cover image. Amazing to see hunting broadclub on the cover!! @drmartinjhow.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @ecologyofvision.bsky.social

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

First paper out on this incredible study system! We describe the remarkably different hunting displays used by the broadclub cuttlefish in the wild. Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.... Stay tuned for more!! @drmartinjhow.bsky.social @vancedberg.bsky.social @ecologyofvision.bsky.social

Mantis shrimp can break glass with their powerful punches. Now we know why they don't break their own claws. That and more of the best in @science.org and science in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

Did you know some single-cell dinoflagellates have a lens eye? Anders Garm at the University of Copenhagen is recruiting a postdoc to help find out why. Check out the advertisement, below 🧪 candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI... photo: Franz Neidl

An"eye-catching" talk by Mike @mikebok.bsky.social from the Lund Vision group @lundvision.bsky.social at @univie.ac.at @viennabiocenter.bsky.social today, cutting from fan worm eyes to the gollum-like eyes of alciopid worms (see the recent @currentbiology.bsky.social study: doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...)

Two blue mosquitoes (there are more!). Left, Toxorhynchites (a worldwide genus whose larvae are predators on other aquatic insects including mosquitoes) and right, Sabethes, a South America genus where adults have large patches of scales on their legs for sexual display. #BlueMonday #BlueBugs

Just started reading this exciting book edited by @mikebok.bsky.social & Elke Buschbeck. It takes us to a fascinating world on different visual systems featuring evolutionary and behavioral aspects. A must read for everyone interested in #neuroethology & vision. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

I'm very excited to give this talk in January! It's free to attend via zoom if you're interested! :)

This is so sad. The first image on Google search for the firefly squid is AI slop of god-knows what...

Gap junctions FTW! If you want to understand how neuronal circuits work, you can’t ignore gap junctions.

New open-source hyperspectral imager you can 3D print for less than $450 from @jtroscianko.bsky.social. The HOSI system can take panoramic hyperspectral images that meet the difficult requirements of artificial light at night (ALAN) research. bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... #BMCBiology

🦟 Pestered by mosquitoes? Fear not—grapefruit might hold the key! 🍊In our latest paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social, led by Merybeth Triana and Felipe Andreazza, we explore how nootkatone, a compound derived from grapefruit, affects mosquitoes. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Excited to join the community! Will be seeking out old and new connections in neuroethology, insect, pollinator, vision, behaviour, anatomy, science, education, and many other spaces on this platform 🤓😀

Welcome to the NEW Journal of Experimental Biology Bluesky feed. We are very excited to be here & are looking forward to talking about the amazing research that we publish in #comparativephysiology, #neuroethology and #biomechanics journals.biologists.com/jeb Please follow us to build our community

A juvenile stomatopod (mantis shrimp) with a carapace like some orc helmet, tumbling madly through the darkness, occasionally punching and slashing at nothing

Excited to dedicate our #FirstSkeet to our new #OpenAccess publication in Nature Communications revealing how #bristleworms make new #StemCells for #Regeneration of their body axis www.nature.com/articles/s41... ... (1/7)

a GCaMP tadpole for #fluorescenceFriday as an introductory hello on BlueSky :) Transgenic by Lora Sweeney (ISTA), and picci by our postdoc Michi Forsthofer

At depths over 6,000 meters, researchers have discovered “faceless” fish with no visible eyes or nose, relying on unique sensory adaptations to navigate in complete darkness. #marinelife

Interested in interneurons? Retina? Electrical coupling? Check out my first senior author paper which just went online www.cell.com/iscience/ful... (Find a short summary a little bit further down my timeline)

Pure autofluorescence from the midband crystalline cones in a mantis shrimp eye. The fluorescence comes from mycosporine like amino acid pigments that absorb specific bands of UV light, thus tuning the UV sensitivity of the photoreceptors they focus light into. 🧪 #FluorescenceFriday

My collaborator, Anders Garm, is advertising a 2 year postdoc position in Copenhagen working on our awesome project with vision in googly-eyed alciopid polychaetes. Applications are due 15 Dec! Apply here: candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI... 🧪

Inspired by @hleisthen.bsky.social and @denizhanpak.bsky.social I've put together a starter pack for neuroethology (broadly defined). Follow these people if you're interested in learning about the mechanisms underlying animal behaviour. Suggestions welcome! go.bsky.app/T5JTFzE

This month's OctoPost is, of course, about #Squidtember, but there's a bit of octopus news and art as well! buttondown.com/dannastaaf/a...

Why is it always like this?

New perspective published in PNAS about fluorescence in tetrapods. Briefly: Fluorescence is probably usually not a visual signal, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...