#WntA is a crucial marker of stripe elements early in development for the Nymphalidae butterfly family. @jasminealqassar.bsky.social & co explore if WntA has maintained its role in stripe elements over 95 million years of evolution in the Hesperiidae family of butterflies. doi.org/10.1242/bio....

🚨New paper! 🚨 @jasminealqassar.bsky.social led this work on the silk glands of the pantry moth. These two long tubes inside the caterpillar continuously make a ton of silk How does this special organ work? www.cell.com/iscience/ful... @cp-iscience.bsky.social 🧵THREAD🧵

Minos transgenesis enables robust, stable germline integration of transgenes in Lepidoptera; providing a reliable alternative to piggyBac, whose native transposases can cause transgene remobilization or instability in moths and butterflies:

Hey Lep researchers! "Given the risks of transgene remobilization and instability associated with piggyBac transposases of lepidopteran origin, we urge researchers interested in developing transgenesis in moths or butterflies to consider using Minos-based tools."

It's out, Minos transgenesis in the pantry moth by @donyaniyaz.bsky.social @lucalivraghi.bsky.social High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers peerj.com/articles/202... @peerj.bsky.social

Transgenic Plodia larvae expressing the very bright mBaoJin (mStayGold variant) in its silk glands. Also some gorgeous 3xP3:mCherry staining of larval ocelli and glia. (see revised preprint) by pantry moth wizards @donyaniyaz.bsky.social & @lucalivraghi.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Very cool work by @jasminealqassar.bsky.social, @evolvwing.bsky.social, and co. And some stunning pictures as an extra treat!

Preprint alert from the lab @jasminealqassar.bsky.social led this elegant study of gene expression in the silk glands of our favorite alternative "silk worm", the pantry moth. Mega-polyploid cells with thousands of genome copies just to express a handful of proteins doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Check out our deep dive into the molecular genetics of male-specific cell type : the gorgeous UV-iridescent scales of Sulphur Butterflies by lab wizards 🦋🔬 🖥️ 🧬 Ling Sheng Loh @hanliconius.bsky.social and a big team 1/n

I am really thrilled to share that our paper, led by Izzy Novick, resolving the Tineidae phylogeny using UCEs and exploring the origins of keratinophagy and synanthropy in the family is now published in Molecular Ecology. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Awesome new paper by @lucalivraghi.bsky.social et al. doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... in @currentbiology.bsky.social on the evo-devo of a butterfly color variation enjoy the show!

Preprint! Minos-mediated transgenesis in the pantry moth www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... By @donyaniyaz.bsky.social

The Lepidoptera Genomics meeting July6-12 in Crete is going to be amazing and they extended the abstract deadline. I wish I could go (most of the team is going) events.gwdg.de/event/880/

Thrilled to share that this paper is out now in Development! journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

My first paper is out today in GBE! A genome assembly and annotation for the webbing clothes moth. academic.oup.com/gbe/article/... A short 🧵

New preprint by butterfly wizard @lucalivraghi.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We mapped optix (again?!) as the switch gene of a natural polymorphism, this time controlling silver patches of a mountain butterfly. Gorgeous RNAi validation, evidence of selective sweeps, introgression

A lovely commentary on @lucalivraghi.bsky.social and @hwkmthcrspr.bsky.social's recent papers, by VanKuren and Kronforst (bsky-less?). "“Being wrong” has never been a bad thing in science because good scientists cannot let go of those little things that just do not line up" - 🔥🔥🔥

There’s loads of invertebrate macrophotographers on Bsky now, so I’ve whipped up a starter pack to make it easy to fill your feed with excellent bug photos! #Invertebrate #Macrophotography 🧪 go.bsky.app/5CHHo2r

@science.org Sorry to be trolling already (this one is from 10.1126/sciadv.ado4167) but a lot of your papers are hard to read for 4% of scientists. Other journals like the New Phytologist issue guidance about figure color accessibility. You could also ask your editors to do better 💜thank you💚 Chloe

(please amplify) 4% of scientists face an important barrier to an the ENTIRE FIELD of single-cell genomics and here is why

Hey Lepidoptera folks, here’s a Starter Pack of Lepidopterologists! If you want to be added (or removed), just @ me with your favourite: #buttetflies? #moths? go.bsky.app/U3HPgpW