A blog about the Planet & People conference at which I spoke recently in Newcastle: planetandpeople.online/join-the-dot...

Latest addition to my office library: from Karl von Frisch‘s possessions, a book written by his student Martin Lindauer. The dedication reads "Meinem grossen Lehrmeister in Dankbarkeit zum 75. Geburtstag" ("To my great teaching-master in gratitude for the 75th birthday")

PhD studentship available to work on insect cognition in my team via the CSC scheme (Chinese applicants only; deadline January 28). See here: www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/postgra...

I've just discovered in an 1830 article that stalk-eyed flies used to be called Perspectivfliegen ("perspective flies") in German, probably referring to the notion that their eye distance must afford some unique form of binocular perspective, and I just love that 🙂

Now with final page numbers - our exploration of whether bee vision might be like the non-conscious visual processing found in blindsighted humans: Tamietto, M., Orsenigo, D., Chittka, L. (2026) Bees, blindsight and consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 30 (1): 6-9; doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Giving a speech in Pristina/Kosovo this Saturday. Online attendance is possible via us06web.zoom.us/j/8632359549.... Meeting ID: 863 2359 5495 Passcode: 1234

My first presentation of 2026 will be in Pristina/Kosovo for Albanian-language beekeepers and I just have to say I love this totally unique language!

New paper: habituation to threatening stimuli in bumblebees is far from simple! psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Fun to do this podcast with Stephen Fleming and Richard Rickitt of the journal BeeCraft about my role as a mad scientist in the film The Last Bee: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpPG...

I found this image on my computer but can't locate the source. From memory, it's from Sigmund Exner's work on the visual resolution of insect compound eyes, but I haven't found the original publication that contains the image. Does anyone know?

🚨 Tenure-track professorship at Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany, with a focus on evolutionary ecology of social hymenoptera 🐝🐜 Initially for 6 years: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/pr...

One of the highlights this year was giving the B.F. Skinner Lecture at the ABAI conference in Washington DC and then meeting the man himself in the corridor. Despite our many disagreements, Dr. Skinner listened patiently and respectfully and we parted as friends. 😉

Do we need yet another metric for measuring academic performance? Well yes, obviously, if that's how the results pan out 😉

New paper! Flexible cognition can arise when oscillatory activity organizes where information can be expressed in neuronal spiking. Oscillatory control of cortical space as a computational dimension www.cell.com/current-biol... @picowerinstitute.bsky.social @mitbcs.bsky.social #neuroscience

Very proud of this new paper from the lab! Work by the magnificent Andrea Adden and many brilliant collaborators illuminate how moth and butterfly brains have evolved in light of different ecologies. Freely available here: rdcu.be/eVR3B; @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social

A lovely review of the French version of The Mind of a Bee, by Bruno Corbara, in the December issue of Espèces

Just shared in Biology Letters @royalsociety: 👉 Lars Chittka: “Bumblebees don’t just copy — they evaluate when social cues are useful.” Read the full paper here: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... #Bees #SocialLearning #AnimalBehaviour #BiologyLetters #TheRoyalSociety

Queen Mary bee expert Professor Lars Chittka praised for his performance as an “unhinged and uncompromising scientist” in acclaimed film. www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2...

Planning a one-afternoon visual psychophysics practical for undergraduate students. Does anyone know a good platform to collect quantitative data on visual acuity, the blindspot, colour mixture, depth perception, edge detection, lateral inhibition, motion adaptation, visual illusions etc?

Last gig of the year, tomorrow!

Important new paper on the effects on floral gloss on detectability and flower identification by pollinators: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Super excited that Osseily Hanna's "The Last Bee" won the Best Fiction Film Trophy at the Festival Internacional de Cine Animal y Ambiental in Mexico this week. The film will be released in 2026 - stay tuned!

New PhD position available! For applicants keen to combine evolutionary ecology, neuroscience and animal cognition. Based at UCL with me, @maxreuter.bsky.social, @fcamus.bsky.social and Tamara Boto (Bristol). Directly funded, see here for details and eligibility: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Víte, že na světě existuje více než 20 000 druhů včel?🐝 Do jejich fascinujícího smyslového světa můžete nahlédnout díky knize Včelí mysl, která právě vychází.📖🙂 Jejím autorem je německý biolog Lars Chittka. Z angličtiny přeložil Pavel Pecháček. Více o NOVINCE👇 www.academia.cz/knihy?id=3485

Fue un reto interesante interpretar a un científico loco en la película del director Mexicano Osse Hanna Gomez, La Última Abeja, also starring Michelle Maldonado! Aquí esta una primera reseña de la película: periodistasunidos.com.mx/nacional/cul...

The perfect paper title doesn't exi... - wonderful work just out in Science from Hugo Merchant and team: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our smart bees in Shaastra, a science and technology magazine published by the Indian Institute of Technology

Sliiiight exaggeration there by CNN, but nonetheless happy about this new collaborative study with Eli Versace's team: @elisabettaversace.bsky.social edition.cnn.com/2025/11/12/s...

Do bees see nothing? Primates with damage to the visual cortex have no conscious visual experience, but display adaptive visual behaviour (a phenomenon called blindsight). Here I team up with two primate researchers to ask if bee vision could be similar to blindsight. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

The earliest mature debate about animal consciousness occurred around 1900 and centred on the insects. We cover this rich history in this new article, as well as some more recent developments on the topic: royalsocietypublishing.org/.../10.../rs...

🐦 EcoBird is hiring a Postdoc in animal cognition! Join us + @themanybirds.bsky.social to investigate innovation & problem-solving in birds. 📅 Start: as early as Jan 2026 🌍 Funded through UGent’s international mobility scheme More info & how to apply ↓ www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...

Hey folks, it's been a while! I just wanted to share my latest paper with @larschittka.bsky.social exploring consciousness in insects! Have a read if you want to learn more about this fascinating subject 😀 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Here: a bee trained to discriminate between long and short duration by @alexdqm.bsky.social @ishaninanda.bsky.social #AnitaOng for "Duration discrimination in the bumblebee..." royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.... @royalsocietypublishing.org cc @larschittka.bsky.social sky.social

2/n This 🐝 work has been a great collaboration between @alexdqm.bsky.social , @ishaninanda.bsky.social # AnitaOngLayMun @larschittka.bsky.social and me from @preparedmindslab.bsky.social see below for a videoclip of the bees @queenmarycbb.bsky.social

Un conversatorio mañana en la Sociedad de Estudiantes del Instituto de Fisiología Celular, UNAM Ciudad de Mexico. Debería ser divertido!

Interesting title that... journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-...

We have a PhD student opening for Insect Cognition via the CSC (Chinese citizens only in this case - deadline January 28) - please pass on to anyone who might be interested and qualified: www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/postgra...

Looking forward to giving a presentation at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens Auditorium in Ann Arbor next week

in Italian: Do insects feel pain? www.ilpost.it/2025/10/13/i... it covers also @preparedmindslab.bsky.social work in collaboration with @larschittka.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... , www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Happy to give a presentation in such illustrious company at the 3rd International Conference on Bee Health at the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in Fuzhou, China this coming week

Exciting new work from former team members Eric Romero, Cwyn Solvi, Fei Peng and colleagues makes the cover of Science: affective contagion in bumblebees! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A few of my ideas on PhD student training

Coming soon: Response-specific behavioral plasticity in habituation triggered by repeated visual looming stimuli in foraging bumblebees (Bombus terrestris), by Dissegna, Andrea Chittka, Lars and Chiandetti, Cinzia psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

At our launching event "Mind, Tech, and Wellbeing" for our new Research Centre for Brain and Behaviour at QMUL! Follow us on here @queenmarycbb.bsky.social to hear more about our research @qmul.bsky.social @larschittka.bsky.social