This week in Science, researchers demonstrate positive affective contagion—a core component of empathy—in bumble bees. The discovery shows that even insects can share affective states, tracing the roots of affect and social cognition deep into evolution. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4oblMQq

🚨 New paper out in #JCP-A @springernature.com "Divergent sensory transcriptomic profiles in positive and negative learning in Bicyclus Anynana butterflies" by Yi Teng Ter & Erica Westerman #Neurogenomics #VisualLearning #Lepidoptera 🧪🧠🦋 ↘️ link.springer.com/article/10.1... ↙️

Neuroscience projects last several years, and you are usually a bit jaded by the time you wrap it up. Not this one– spending several months on an island in the middle of nowhere, away from all the craziness of the world reminds you how beautiful the world really is. www.youtube.com/watch?v=46sv...

Thrilled to announce I'll be joining the Division of Neuroscience at @manchester.ac.uk as a Lecturer in Feb '26! The DuLab will explore how the brain integrates sensory streams into internal maps 🌐 using the rodent head-direction circuit, the 'neural compass', as a starting point for the journey 🧭

Interested in the brain, circuits, and behavior? Enjoy tinkering and asking bold questions in neuroscience? The Forli Lab (IIT, Genova, Italy) is hiring! 🧠 🔬 🟩◻️🟥->🍕🚫🍍 Check out our website for updates: sites.google.com/view/forli-lab

A textbook example what the field of neuroethology is about. Studying the brain in the wild. Congrats to these awesome findings. 🥳😃

Reposting for the Monday morning scrollers! Funded PhD opportunity with me @multipleye-lab.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - spiders, their eyes, and their babies under long- and short-term light pollution!

Paper & incredible science alert: Our assistant professor @laurastidsholt.bsky.social & a passionate team @elena-tena.bsky.social @ebdonana.bsky.social found proof for greater nocturnal #bats 🦇 preying on migratory birds 🐦 AND devouring them in flight! #bioacoustics www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New preprint from the lab: A reference brain for the clonal raider ant. With this resource, which is based on 40 individual brains, you can register and compare all kinds of samples in a common space. It comes with lots of detailed protocols and a user-friendly GUI. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New study @jexpbiol.bsky.social on local search behavior in Drosophila larvae. Results suggest that local search is mainly mediated by idiothetic cues. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Vector navigation is common in insects. While directional coding has been studied in great detail, we know less about how distances are represented in the brain. @idatri.bsky.social & S. DasGrupta study the neural mechanisms of odometry in flies. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thank you to everyone for their support over the past 100 years, and for helping us celebrate this year. You can catch up with all our 100-year content on our special anniversary page bit.ly/4naj8Jr

We're very proud to be releasing the complete male fly CNS connectome! It's the product of a huge team effort here at Janelia in partnership with the Cambridge Fly Connectomics group (@jefferis.bsky.social and colleagues), plus invaluable collaborators. More soon... www.janelia.org/project-team...

Only one day left to apply for this 5 year Postdoc. Everyone with experience in electrophysiology and a keen interest in #neuroethology is welcomed to apply. More infos about our lab can also be found here: www.spatial-navigation.com 🐝🧠🇩🇪

🐝 Can #ElectricFields from #powerlines disrupt #honeybee foraging? A new #iScience study says yes — AC & +DC fields cut landings by 71% 🌸⚡ 🧾Read here: www.cell.com/iscience/ful... #ElectricPollution #PollinatorHealth #Entomology #Agroecology #EcoResearch #InsectScience #SaveTheBees #FieldEcology

Insect spatial memory is thought to be based on panoramic snapshots that are modelled as retinotopic images. This idea won't allow a distinction of landmarks from the scene. Unexpectedly, our data suggest that 🐝 learn 3D-objects as individual landmarks. #neuroethology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out new research into the fascinating and challenging world of #AvianNavigation! 🦉 'How Birds Find Their Way', by Helmut Satz, describes our current understanding of the navigation of birds, their methods, capabilities, and achievements. bit.ly/42bC5Um#AvianNavigation#BookSky

How is valence computed in the brain? Check out our new preprint about a single cell that integrates excitatory and inhibitory input across modalities according to valence and impacts behavioral decisions. An exciting collaboration across many labs. Enjoy reading! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Now out in @nature.com: Our study discovering a neural circuit in Drosophila that predictively inhibits proprioceptor axons during voluntary leg movements, such as walking and grooming. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

« Diverse calcium dynamics underlie place field formation in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells. » A fundamental study now published @elife.bsky.social elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

New from @katejj.bsky.social group!

1/ 🚨 New preprint! 🚨 Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇 📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩 #neuroskyence

Two weeks are left to apply for a 5 year Postdoc position in #neuroscience, #behavior, #neuroethology in collaboration with @puh23.bsky.social from Flinders University. 🇦🇺🇩🇪🐝 👀

Based on feedback from applicants, reviewers and broader research community, the ERC Scientific Council decided to make changes in the 2026–27 calls for proposal for research funding. More details from the ERC President 👉 europa.eu/!hP3WWF What’s your take on this? Tell us! 👇

A gallery of Cephalotes turtle ants. I've been photographing ants for over two decades, and I still haven't managed to shoot even 20% of the species in one of my favorite genera.

Attending my first international conference, Behaviour 2025, was an amazing experience😊 I got to meet so many people interested in the same field and received a lot of valuable feedback. Excited to turn this work into a publication! #vetmeduni #Behaviour2025 #kea #poster

New Sonic Connexions online meet-up coming up on Sep 24! This one will be on Bioacoustics AI with Liz Ferguson. Register now to join the discussions!! #bioacoustics 🔊🧪 whoi-edu.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

#FluorescenceFriday #Seahorse retina stained with #GNB3 (green) + #DAPI (cyan). GNB3 labels cone photoreceptors + ON #bipolarcells, tracing pathways from outer to inner retina. Amazing to see conserved visual #circuits in this non-traditional model

Our paper on central complex evolution in Heliconiini butterflies is now available as reviewed preprint at @elife.bsky.social 🎉🎉. Please check out the helpful and constructive reviews which we are going to address in the next weeks 🤗 elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre... @ebablab.bsky.social

José Borrero from Richard Merrill's lab studies how the visual acuity changes with age in different species of Heliconius butterflies and how it is related to brain morphology and neurogenesis. #dzg2025 @borreroja.bsky.social @dickmerrill.bsky.social

Traplining-behavior requires extensive spatial memory which is linked to Mushroom Body expansion in the brain of Heliconius 🦋. @maxfarnworth.bsky.social from @ebablab.bsky.social lab talks about the neural lineages that may underly this anatomical expansion. #dzg2025

And switching to neuroethology from start to finish, we heard about @beetzjerome.bsky.social 's amazing work into navigation and neural coding in the monarch butterfly and bee brain. FInd out more abotu Jerome's research here: www.spatial-navigation.com

It was a pleasure listening to @jmappes.bsky.social talk @dzg2025berlin.bsky.social about anti-predator strategies in lepidoptera and how predation affects moth color morphs. predatorpreyinteractions.com

This evening, @dzg2025berlin.bsky.social presented a wonderful opening ceremonie at the natural history museum of Berlin. Great place to kick off the annual meeting of the German Zoological Society. #dzg2025

Application is open! Come join us and our fantastic line-up of speakers next year in March in Bonn!

The first of Jessie Foley’s work on the #evolution of #ageing in #Heliconius for your reading pleasure. Come for the 348 day old butterfly, stay for the evolved slower rate of ageing, species*diet effects, and weightlifting for elderly butterflies 💪🏻👵🏻 🧪

Ant reproduction is getting weirder and weirder. Here’s the latest: queens of a Mediterranean harvester ant mate with males from a different species and then lay eggs that clonally inherit those males’ genome. I.e., they lay eggs that develop into a different species. 🤯

🕷️ 🚨 Are you at the #DZG in Berlin next week? @dzg2025berlin.bsky.social my PhD @nadjageiger.bsky.social and I are very excited to tell you the latest about our spider sleep 💤 work! Come check out our talks on Friday and ask all your questions! :) 🚨 🕷️

I still can't believe that my ERC starting grant proposal, #BeeSpace got accepted by the @erc.europa.eu. For the next 5 years, we have funding to study place coding in the insect 🐝 brain. Exciting times are ahead. Without the great support of my former PIs this wouldn't have been possible.

The rig for conducting intracellular recordings from the 🐝🧠 is getting in shape. If you are interested using it here in Würzburg 🇩🇪 contact me. We have an open PhD position expected to be filled until spring 2026. www.spatial-navigation.com/open-positio... #neurethology

During sleep, reuniens theta synchronizes with MEC provoking memory reactivation. rdcu.be/eCMfl

#ABL2025 Plenary Spotlight: Dr Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy ⭐ Join us on Nov 13-14 to learn how @avispatica.bsky.social Dr Mora-Kepfer Uy’s team uncovered captivating ways in which parasites reprogram the behaviour and lifespan of insects. 🐝🪱 Learn more about the conference: ablaoc25.sciencesconf.org

Are you Neuroscientist (Electrophysiologist) interested in how insect brains encode space? Are you on the job market and looking for a Postdoc (up to 5 years) in Germany? Then this position might be a good match. Application deadline: 1st of October. 🐝🧭🗺. More infos: www.spatial-navigation.com

Size matters. Guppies with large telencephalons tend to learn faster in spatial learning tasks, than 🐟 with smaller telencephalons. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/... @gilles-de-meester.bsky.social

Beautiful study from Martin Egelhaaf's group who designed a VR-setup to test visual place learning in tethered walking bumblebees. @jexpbiol.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Amazing opportunity, join the Manzini Lab and become part of the Institute of Animal Physiology in Giessen!

Researchers have filmed thousands of climbing catfish scaling waterfalls, providing a rare insight into the daring migration of an enigmatic fish. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4lDlFux

Thanks @waspwoman.bsky.social for writing this inspiring book. Although feeling guilty as being part of "ying" (a bee-guy 😉), I always enjoy observing "yin", i.e., sandwasps and adore their episodic spatial memory. Wish I could breed them in the lab.

We know how visual objects influence spatial tuning in the hippocampus. A new study from @batwoman123.bsky.social shows that auditory objects can be egocentrically or allocentrically encoded in the hippocampus of echolocating bats 🦇. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @currentbiology.bsky.social

Birds navigating around the globe has inspired science since centuries. It is still debated whether birds are equipped with an internal map? Two hypotheses, an olfactory map and an infrasound direction-finding are reviewed by Jonathan Hagstrum. 🐦 link.springer.com/article/10.1...