Our podcast is out! Check out our research @urochester.bsky.social that is decoding how true biohackers called twisted-winged insects control social wasps! #teamwasp #strepsiptera #zombiewasps 🐝🧟‍♀️ Please check out this fantastic initiative by @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social. Thank you for having me!

Our big review paper on strepsipteran systematics for Insect Systematics and Diversity is out! Hoping it's a helpful resource for anyone who needs it.

5/ Some wings have evolved strategies to help reduce damage resulting from collisions. For example, we learned a few years ago that wasp wings have a flexible joint that acts like a reversible crumple zone, allowing the wing tip to easily bend out of the way when it hits things...

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

Applying to the NSF-GRFP (or another fellowship) on a tight deadline? We built a 7-week guide + timeline to get you from draft to submission. It’s not too late — you’ve got this! ✨ 🔗 cientificolatino.com/apply-in-7-weeks #NSFGRFP #GradSchool #Fellowship

Nesting behaviour drives the evolution of heat tolerance and climate vulnerability in bees! Check out our pre-print on 95 species of Australian native bee across the latitudinal extent of Australia! 🐝 #nativebee #climateadaptation #heattolerance #plasticity #behaviour #bees #climatechange

📣📣Interested in writing a proposal to explore coevolution and/or mechanisms underlying parasitic manipulation? Check out our team’s current projects and emerging host-parasite system. If these align with your interests , please check eligibility per NSF guidelines and email me! #GRFP #zombiewasps

"Why is it called a hanging thief?" www.inaturalist.org/photos/10502...

🌟Looking for a PhD? 🌟 check out this exciting opportunity in integrative biology with an amazing PI! 👇🏽👇🏽

Check out the fantastic podcast series run by @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social! In each episode, Amanda (artist) and Kelly (entomologist) discuss amazing insects, with researchers as guests. Amanda also designs an illustration based on each convo! 🐝🐜🦋🪰🦟🪲🕷️

Our false head work is out! By analysing ~1000 #butterflies, we found many traits at posterior end of hindwings evolved correlatedly, likely forming a trait complex w/adaptive function to dupe predators into thinking these traits together are actual head!! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

#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

Wasps on BBC Breakfast 🐝 Our expert joined BBC Breakfast to talk all things wasps - why they're essential, misunderstood, and worth celebrating. Discover the Grant Museum’s fascinating new exhibition on wasp diversity. 🔗 www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-coll... #UCL #GrantMuseum #BBCBreakfast #Wasps

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

📣 Happy to see the journal publication 📄 of our work on Starships 🚀 in Verticillium fungi: terrific work led by @yukiyosato.bsky.social rdcu.be/exBSp

Honored to be a plenary speaker for #ABL2025! #wasplove

Article on #NewSpecies of parasitoid wasp we discovered last year on #RiceUniversity campus! Great work led by @brendanoloughlin.bsky.social in collaboration with Mike Gates, Pedro Brandão, & me. www.sciencing.com/1905663/texa...

When darkness falls some wasps don't return to a nest to sleep, they simply latch onto some foliage for the night. Here a thread-waisted wasp (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae: Ammophila pictipennis) has settled in on a common ragweed (Asteraceae: Ambrosia artemisiifolia). Blissfield Michigan, 18 Sep 2010.

I’m back from a work trip and it’s my turn to do colony check-ins. I asked for which colonies to 👀 for potentially killing brood… and I get this protocol 🤣🤣 #teamwasp #ProudPI

A beautiful female Mymar pulchellum parasitoid wasp of the Mymaridae found in Brede High Woods. This may be a common species but it is always worth a closer look! #UKWildlife #wasps #Mymaridae #HighWeald

After >20 years of working with wasps, I like them even more now! And a ⭐️ team that’s rocking this season and experimental infections with twisted wing parasites! #wasplove #strepsiptera #fieldseason #ProudPI #teamwasp

Working with parasites blows my mind! As in an alien movie, here is an instar 2 larva of Xenos peckii. Amazing dissection from star student Natasha Vacca, as it’s the size of a spec of dust! It infects and manipulates Polistes fuscatus, the social wasps we study. #Strepsiptera #zombies #wasplove

Congrats to Amanda who truly reflects excellence while being an incredibly kind and giving human being!

Well, this is a first! And much appreciated! It’s usually Dr. and Mrs. Uy, even though we’re both academics 🥴

Another day testing the limits of resilience. The Alexandria NSF building was designed for the NSF merit review process (gold standard), complete with a floor devoted to panels. Now we aren’t allowed to have in person panels. The loss of US science leadership will haunt this country for decades.

Selection Shapes Diverse Animal Minds: our special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans B on the diverse evolutionary processes underlying cognitive evolution is out today. Thanks to all our contributors! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Current Biology just published a Q&A with me where I talk about my journey as a scientist and why I enjoy interacting with artists. OA link: urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

Job alert! Sam Noble Museum (OU) seeks a Collection Manager for the Recent Invertebrates collection (insects, mollusks, arachnids & more). You’ll team up with the incoming Curator (👋 me). Apply via jobs.ou.edu, Job # 251244. DM questions. #museumjobs #arthropods #collections

WASP OR MOTH!? 🐝🤯 One of the most incredible mimics in the world, this Tiger Moth (Orcynia calcarata) looks so much like a wasp I was almost nervous holding it! 😳 There are so many tiger moths mimicking wasps in the Amazon it’s crazy! 😯🌳 How amazing is nature! 💛🖤

"‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects" Before long, the word "bug" will be reserved for computer software. #entomology #ecology #insects 🧪

Announcing myloasm, a new long-read (ONT R10/PacBio) metagenome assembler that I've been working on during my postdoc in the Heng Li lab (@lh3lh3.bsky.social). myloasm-docs.github.io

Here are your Wednesday Wasps. 🐙🌿 What wasps, you ask? They're the tiny green "grapes" on the caterpillar. They're larvae of a Euplectus sp. wasp. The female wasp injects a venom into the caterpillar which stops it from molting ever again, so the wasp's externally-attached babies won't fall off--

the leafhoppers are back (warbler migration for entomologists)

#NewSpecies! New parasitoid wasp from #costarica just flew in: Perilampus falcatus Treatment: treatment.plazi.org/id/03E27E55-... Publication: doi.org/10.11646/zoo... #Zootaxa #PerilampusFalcatus #FAIRdata #biology #biodiversity #nature #animals #entomology #insects #hymenoptera #wasps #parasite

I find myself missing fieldwork in the tropics! Here is some Polistes stigma from the Solomon Islands for much-needed #wasplove The female with dark eyes has recently emerged, and her eyes will lighten in a few days. Some of the tiniest Polistes I've seen! Images by Al Uy @tropbiolab.bsky.social

🌟 Graduation party for our three undergrad stars from #teamwasp @tropbiolab.bsky.social ! 🌟 Grateful for mentoring an amazing team of rising scholars. The party included some 🦅🐝🐜 watching... & the most unesthetic piñata, decorated with early figures from our graduates! #proudPI

I think it's kinda cool that one of our city's biggest festivals is "these bushes are cool, go look at flowers and eat fried food" #LilacFestival #bloomscrolling

Now published!!!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are very pleased to share that our paper on sexual dimorphism in circadian rhythms has been published in @plosbiology.org. This work was led by the very talented Aishwarya Iyer and includes contributions from three undergraduate co-authors. You can read the full study here:

Tis’ the season that generous naturalists start to send me wasp pictures! This “booty” pic 🤣 shows the foundresses of Polistes dominula, native to Europe. It’s invasive here and in many other places in the world. #teamwasp #teamxenome @tropbiolab.bsky.social is ready, experiment time! #wasplove

I propose we start calling parasitoid wasps "friend wasps" and launch a massive PR campaign to make people love them

A nest of the northern paper wasp, Polistes fuscatus. The wasps like to build their nests under overhangs, especially of wooden houses. They masticate the wood they collect from the environment into a pulp, which they then use to construct their paper combs. Woodstock, NY.

A bald-faced hornet fly (Spilomyia fusca; a syrphid, or hoverfly) and an actual bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata). The former is supposed to be a mimic of the latter, and I can believe that one might be fooled upon a cursory look. Woodstock, NY.

Our new paper is out in Science. What is the synaptic plasticity rule in the brain, we asked. It turns out there are multiple, even within individual neurons. Congrats Jake! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🌟Congrats to undergrad researcher Natasha Vacca @nvacca08.bsky.social for being awarded the NSF-GRFP! 🌟 We're also thrilled that Natasha is not tired of us and will continue as a doctoral student with #teamwasp @tropbiolab.bsky.social @urochester.bsky.social #wasplove #addictedtostrepsiptera

Arthropod Photo of the Week: April 16, 2025 Eggplant horned planthopper Leptocentrus taurus Hemiptera: Membracidae By Vijin Varghese, Kerala, India #arthropodPOTW

#bugtarot #Sciart Card 7: The Lovers Two parasitic Strepsiptera bound by fate to find each-other in the very brief window they have. A relationship as inevitable as it is violent.

A long, long time ago, we started this review project during the first Coron lockdown, but if finally made it out into the world - Origin and function of beneficial bacterial symbioses in insects! @naturerevmicro.bsky.social

🐜🐜🐜 Invasive Ant Boot Camp registration is now open! Join us in Gainesville, FL May 7-9, 2025, to learn to spot the most ants with the worst reputations. 🐜🐜🐜www.invasiveantbootcamp.org