And that’s a wrap on a year of watercolour #WildflowerHour: 365 flowers painted within a week of blooming. Mostly wildflowers, with a few garden escapes, and a whole lot of joy.

These wood ants are edge specialists... but not all edges are equal. Jacob Podesta used a decade of population expansion data to show that wood ants spread more quickly along certain edges, depending on the edge orientation. Currently available open access here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Bumbling around over what to get your loved ones for Christmas? Look no further! Your answer to fun, learning & festive family competition is here. Social insects trump cards, available at the Winter Meeting. Order today: www.iussi-nweurope.org/edi All proceeds go to funding inclusion bursaries.

I'm very proud to receive the 2025 Robert P. McIntosh Award from the @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social Vegetation Section at #ESA2025 with an amazing group of colleagues, for our paper on Community #MastSeeding. 🥳 Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... Award info: esa.org/vegetation/a...

Amazing talk by @jennyperry.bsky.social bringing together signalling theory and socially transferred materials. Keep your eyes peeled for the eventual paper with @steveramm.bsky.social @elvarobinson.bsky.social and myself #ESEB2025 @socialtransfernet.bsky.social

Do you moth trap in the UK? See below! @royentsoc.bsky.social

Look at the size of this wood ant nest! (Or perhaps I'm just smaller than you thought). This is a Northern Hairy Wood Ant nest in the Lake District, sampled by @melvinopolka.bsky.social and me for the @monitant.bsky.social project this year.

Had an amazing time with @melvinopolka.bsky.social and Igor Siedlecki, discovering so many beautiful ants nests and collecting samples and data for the Europe-wide MonitAnt @monitant.bsky.social project. We are so lucky that wood ants always choose such beautiful places to make their homes!

👉 How to get involved: - Follow this page for updates and event invites - Join our email network: www.socialtransfer.net/join - Or just drop us a DM, everyone’s welcome! We’re excited to connect with you. Watch this space for future seminars and updates! See you soon, fluids (or beverages) in hand!

I'm so fortunate to have these amazing PhD students in my group!

⏰ Today is the deadline to submit your #Ento25 abstracts! Present your work to the global entomological community. With in-person & online options, there's opportunities for everyone to participate. 📅 Deadline: 17:00 (BST), 20 June 🔽 buff.ly/CS8MyOQ unistrathclyde.bsky.social

Making the most of the warm weather to re-map the cooperative wood ant colony networks at the beautiful @nationaltrust.org.uk's Longshaw Estate. This was day 1 last week - two keen student volunteers getting their first experience of wood ants

The herbicide glyphosate is globally ubiquitous. Here we report in a new paper on the sublethal effects to the behavior and brains of bees, a non-target organism that might encounter the herbicide while foraging in agricultural landscapes. Photo creds LC McHenry & R Schurch doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

There are still a few spaces left in my Drawing Bees online course starting tomorrow evening. It's a fun way to spend a few spring evenings. www.eventbrite.com/e/drawing-be... 🌿🎨

The Ada Lovelace Day fundraiser is closing in on its stretch goal, with just £887 left to raise! If you can chuck a tenner into the kitty, I'd be very grateful. I did a quick thread of the things this will allow me to do here: bsky.app/profile/ada...

Did you know about these tiny shiny ants (red arrow) living with wood ants (blue arrow)? They are Shining Guest Ants (Formicoxenus) and we have recently discovered that a wood ant nest can be home to several genetically distinct colonies of these 'guests'! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 1/5

So pleased to see this paper published - the fieldwork was beset by Covid disruptions and restrictions, but we found out some fascinating things about the beautiful but elusive Shining Guest Ants. Project funded by @futurewoodlands.bsky.social

Edith Clarke was an electrical engineer & the first female professor of electrical engineering in the USA. She developed a method to calculate the maximum power that a power transmission line could carry and remain stable. Read more & subscribe: adalovelaceday.subst...

What happens when a wood ant network is disrupted? New Open Access research shows that it depends on the resource. Networks are resilient to the loss of random resources, but a targetted removal of a key resource changes network structure 1/2 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

We're recruiting 3 new Editors-in-Chief covering medical, veterinary & forensic entomology. We're looking for researchers committed to building the profile of the journal & handling manuscripts with integrity. 📅 Deadline: 11 May Apply 🔽 buff.ly/W60vdzt @MedVet_Ent #RESMedVetEnt

Only a week left to apply for our Interdisciplinary Summer School on Forest Ecosystems in Oxford from 4-8 August. All costs of EU-based participants will be fully covered.

RT! Looking for an exciting opportunity to join a wonderful field team in Senegal as a PAID RESEARCH ASSISTANT? @CrpSimenti is hiring! Explore the lives of wild Guinea baboons in their natural habitat, while gaining proficiency in diverse research methods: bit.ly/4j5itaM

Happy to see that a small article Elia Nalini (from @euracalpenv.bsky.social ) and I wrote for the myrmecological news blog is now finally published! 🐜 We present our @monitant.bsky.social project and also our Citizen Science approach. 🔎 blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2025/04/09/m...

@asab.org has a new grants secretary - it's me! I've already been busy preparing boosted travel grants for the @behaviour2025.bsky.social conference in Kolkata, India. Next job is to revise grants in line with EDIA principles and better support for #ECRs. Apply here: www.asab.org/grant-overview

@asab.org has grants to attend #behaviour2025, boosted for applicants (ALL SENIORITIES!) from developed countries up to £2000. Plus the usual £2500 for those from developing countries, and £800 if you're based in India. But get your abstracts in soon - deadline 31st January!

PhD position on the ecology and evolution of animal memory! Please get in touch if you’re interested in joining us

Does anyone have a PDF of Rufus Johnstone's 1997 chapter 'The Evolution of Animal Signals' by any chance?

PhD position available! Are you interested in how natural selection shapes the evolution of animal memory? Be part of our experimental evolution plans at UCL @ucl-pnl.bsky.social @treesdla.bsky.social , co-supervised by Flo Camus @fcamus.bsky.social. www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/evo...

Can meadow ants help provide habitat for pollinators? PhD student Gabrielle Flinn (@thecuriousant.bsky.social) is aiming to find out - read her blog post here: fifecoastandcountrysidetrust.co.uk/blog/in-ant-... #conservation #ants #pollinators #restoration

🚨The video contest for #ASABWinter2024 has been extended!🚨If you were still hoping to enter, here’s your chance! 🎥 🎞️🎬 ❄️ More info: asabwinter2024.github.io ❄️

We are looking forward to launching Elm! @anaspene.bsky.social #BES2024 And *everything* else of course

Interested in Social Insects? There’s still a week left to register for this hybrid meeting in London, December 16th: www.iussi.org/NWEurope/mee...

Do you have a field trip in your evolutionary medicine course? I would love to hear about it