This is such an important, rigorous, and beautiful paper by Rochelle - light pollution impacts both the "normal" visual cues of detecting sunset to trigger activity AND the polarised visual cues of the sky used for navigation...in two completely different animal species! 🦋🕷️🌌 Such amazing work!

I must admit that it's a bit surreal to hear @zefrank.bsky.social talk about my research, so fun! www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxSr...

Very happy to see our opinion article out in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social today. 🥳 We ask whether sexual signals can influence the evolutionary trajectory of naturally selected adaptations, such as protective colouration, for better or for worse 🧐 1/n doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Come and work with us in our new home @bristolbiosci.bsky.social ! This fully funded PhD opportunity is open to anyone interested in spiders/eyes/light pollution/evolution/development! 🕷️👀 ⏰Deadline 15th December, online info event TODAY @2pm! Link in the PhD advert👉 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Spiders that experience vibrations, visual stimuli, both or none during development do not differ strongly in the size of their brain areas. This is a surprising finding. Even more surprising is that siblings react alike. See our new publication in the J. comp. Neurology. doi.org/10.1002/cne.... 🧪🕷

Happy to see this lovely study led by @sigwartae.bsky.social and Leonie Georg @oceanspecies.bsky.social out! 🎉Although chitons are a classic example of distributed visual systems, the shell eyes aren't uniform across the body - the lenses increase in volume as new eyes are added at the shell edge!

Do you work (/want to work) with caterpillars? Or sensory systems? Or BOTH?! Well good golly do we have the paper for you! We explain the senses that caterpillars have, what they use them for, and how anthropogenic sensory pollution might be messing it all up 🐛 doi.org/10.1007/s003...

How do animals recognise incoming stimuli as predators? In this paper from the Casas' lab, they tested aerodynamical looming, and they show that size and velocity of the incoming object activated wind-sensitive neurons in 🦗. These responses are similar to visual looming! www.cell.com/current-biol...

Very cool paper

Still can't quite believe I was lucky enough to be awarded the John and Laurine Proud Postdoctoral fellowship from the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation. Spending 3 weeks on the island with @emweschke.bsky.social, finding and studying coral reef spiders underwater was an absolute dream! 🕷️🌊

New #PhD ad alert! Interested in wild #bee #cognition and #brains in different #bumblebees? Want to live in #Newcastle and the beautiful north-east of England? Check out this project with me, @lenariab.bsky.social and Sarah Scott. Contact me for further information. iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

How many plant species are buzz pollinated? After more than six years in the making, our paper on the convergent evolution of buzz pollinated flowers is out in @journal-evo.bsky.social. Thanks @draverbee.bsky.social @roszenil.bsky.social and all co-authors for your hard work! doi.org/10.1093/evol...

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!

Exciting times ahead - I'm beyond delighted to be joining @bristolbiosci.bsky.social in 2026! 🎉🕷️🎉🐌🎉 I'm also looking for a PhD student to join @multipleye-lab.bsky.social in our new home! Come and study the effects of light pollution on the evolution and development of spider eyes with us 🌃🕷️👀 👇

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 💪🏻👵🏻 🧪

✨ It’s published! ✨ 🕷️ Social spiders have bigger brains… but only in the right places! Our new study shows that in social huntsman spiders, regions for memory & vision processing are proportionally larger, supporting group living. Read more: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social paper out today in @royalsociety.org Biology Letters. We found adult jackdaws can learn to tolerate usually bullied or ignored juveniles when they provided information about a new foraging resource. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

One of the most-viewed PNAS articles in the last week is “Electroreception in treehoppers: How extreme morphologies can increase electrical sensitivity.” Explore the article here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... For more trending articles, visit ow.ly/Me2U50SkLRZ.

Interested in doing a 3-month #internship on treehopper vibrational communication at STRI in Panama? 🤩 Check this out: stri.si.edu/academic-pro... Contact me for more info! #AnimalBehavior

Do you do moth trapping in the UK? We'd love your help! 💡 At @ukceh.bsky.social we're training & testing AI to detect multiple moths in a single image. Send us top-down photos of multiple moths on egg trays to support this work. More info & form: forms.gle/e3HzBPEd7RVV... #mothsmatter #TeamMoth

🎓 #PhD in Animal Metabolomics & Ecology @unigreifswald🇩🇪 Sexual and non-sexual communication in a widow spider 🕷️⚗️ DFG-funded | 3 years | behavioral ecology & chemical ecology Details: bit.ly/widow-phd Apply by Sept 24, start in February 2026 #AcademicSky #pleaserepost

Hiring 4 postdocs — organismal biophysics, soft robotics, frugal Raman diagnostics, or your own bold idea. 3-year funding, $65K+ benefits. GT (Atlanta) now → CU Boulder BioFrontiers Institute in Fall ’26. PDF/details in next post. Tag/share if someone comes to mind. 🧪🪲🪳#livingphysics

My photo made it onto the cover of @pnas.org! 🎉You can read the related article about the amazing morphologies of treehoppers increasing their sensitivity to static electricity here: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

About 3200 insect species around the world have evolved a structure on their back called a helmet. But the appendage isn’t just for show: It allows for the detection of electric fields—perhaps helping them distinguish friend from foe. scim.ag/46xid0Y

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...

Visual information in the dark: Bioluminescence and perceptual design through evolution - Oakley - Functional Ecology - Wiley Online Library besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Incredibly honoured to have played a small part in Benito's masterpiece 🦋👀🌳

New from @gadusmo.bsky.social’s PhD thesis 👐🏼 with @dickmerrill.bsky.social, Jake Morris, Camilo Salazar and Carolina Pardo-Díaz ‘Repeated evolution of reduced visual investment at the onset of ecological speciation in high-altitude #Heliconius butterflies’ 1/n 🧪 academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Why do imperfect mimics (such as many hoverflies) exist? We created 3D printed replicas of flies, wasps and our own custom intermediates and then "asked" various predators what they thought of our 3D stimuli. Read all about it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am looking for a Postdoc and a PhD student who want to study the neuronal mechanisms of the bee's waggle dance. 🐝 More details can be found on our webpage: www.spatial-navigation.com/open-positio...

Excited to share my review @jphysiol.bsky.social : Can we study whisker movements to gain insights into the natural sensory behaviours of mammals? doi.org/10.1113/JP28... I recommend developing more social and active foraging tasks and including a wider variety of species in lab studies

PhD position open with Dr. Jutta Schneider and @mherberstein.bsky.social in Hamburg, on sub-social behavior in crab spiders 🕷️ It even includes field work in Australia! Application deadline is 15 July, more info at the link: www.uni-hamburg.de/en/stellenan...

A bucket list item for me for sure! Last week, our study on electrostatic attraction of ticks was covered brilliantly by Springwatch on the BBC. Naturally, chaos ensued. @chrisgpackham.bsky.social I hope you didn't find the tick on you or Michaela later! 48 mins in: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

🐠💥2 year postdoc in fish sensory ecology!! 💥🐟 If you’re into animal colour, collective behaviour, predator-prey interactions, enjoy behavioural experiments and fieldwork, please apply! Based in Oxford with fieldwork in northwest Thailand (and elsewhere). Please repost! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNM294/p...

Contribute to the first global archive of soniferous freshwater life, The Freshwater Sounds Archive, and receive recognition as a co-author in a resulting data paper! Pre-print now available. New deadline: 31st Dec, 2025. See link 👇4 more fishsounds.net/freshwater.js

🚨Anyone want a job?🚨 We have two #postdocs up for grabs! 🧪 - cell developmental biology/#evodevo/#neuroevodevo - bioinformatics and molecular biology Both working on brain evolution in Heliconiini butterflies Details below! Please repost 🙏 1/n

I had a lot of fun giving this interview - I wish my research always had dramatic music in the background

New paper coins the "Gollum effect" in reference to systemic territoriality in academia, behaviour that is anthitetical to scientific collaboration, resource sharing, and open knowledge exchange. Check out the stats! Most respondents from #ecoevo www.cell.com/one-earth/fu...

Tool use in insects: Assassin bugs apply resin to their forelegs before a stingless bee hunt. This makes the bees attack the bug in just the right position to be caught! Videos will worth watching www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Join us in celebrating our 2024 Cozzarelli Prize Class VI: Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences winning paper, “Prey can detect predators via electroreception in air.” Read the article here: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Heading home after a busy weekend @diamondlightsource.bsky.social with @maikekittelmann.bsky.social, @atal-pande.bsky.social and @samjakeengland.bsky.social @multipleye-lab.bsky.social ✨🕷️🪰 it's always a pleasure scanning and snacking through the days and nights!

I had a lot of fun writing this invited dispatch for @currentbiology.bsky.social about the amazing paper by @julieriedl.bsky.social and many non-bluesky colleagues, describing how Drosophila larvae can detect electric fields: www.cell.com/current-biol...

🍃New preprint alert!!🍃(maybe I'll start using this app more from now on 😂). Excited for my first piece of katydidling to be released into the wild. Feedback and comments, as always, are very welcome! @uniofstandrews.bsky.social 😊 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Super happy to have started my @humboldt-foundation.de postdoctoral fellowship this past week, staying with @laurensr.bsky.social @multipleye-lab.bsky.social in @mfnberlin.bsky.social - stay tuned for fun science on the weirdest caterpillars and spiders 🐛🕷️ www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/connect/e...

🐝 According to the discovery of a new fossil hoverfly with a well-preserved mimetic color pattern, the occurrence of accurate wasp mimics preceded the dominance of passerine birds in Europe. 🐦 Read more in a new paper ⬇️ doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Absolutely buzzing that my paper with Daniel, describing our discovery of electroreception in caterpillars, has been awarded the @pnas.org Cozzarelli Prize for the best paper in its field published last year! I should make little medals for the caterpillars and wasps 🥇🐛🐝 www.pnas.org/post/update/...

Really lovely spider eye development paper unveiling lots of cool secrets! Perhaps most important for the jumping spider people out there - the salticid "PMEs" are actually homologous with the PLEs of other spiders (and vice versa)!

We have a fully funded International 4-year position (combined Master of Research+PhD) to study visual navigation in jumping spiders. Project will be supervised by @pipilika.bsky.social, @mherberstein.bsky.social, @dinrao.bsky.social & Ximena Nelson. At Macquarie University, Sydney. Details below

Our latest paper on the jump kinematics and choreography in the Oz Splendid Peacock spider. We filmed & analysed locomotory jumps in male & female spiders. The males are incredibly light - measuring just 2mg - and oh they can jump! Videos in the thread. Open Access - read here: tinyurl.com/4bnpz9tz

A paper in Nature reports that the loggerhead turtle can learn and remember the magnetic signature of an area and does a ‘turtle dance’ when in a location that they associate with food. https://go.nature.com/4jSQEDo 🐢 🧪