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We just released a new open resource for studying evolution, ecology, colour, behaviour & biodiversity. OzButterflies 🦋 ✨ 4,000+ individuals 🌈 Visible + UV images 🧬 CO1 barcodes 📈 Spectral reflectance data 🏞️ 125 species doi.org/10.1093/data... @mherberstein.bsky.social @livuni-ives.bsky.social

I loved writing this! Make sure to watch the videos! 🦋🧪

📢 Heads-up: I'm currently finalising the job description for a 30-month postdoc modelling visual abilities in these very gorgeous and very dead creatures! If you're interested, please get in touch - anticipated start is late 2026/early 2027 and the project combines great colleagues in UK + S Korea!

Male katydids produce mating calls using structures on their wings and many species have wing regions that mimic leaves to evade predators. Watch #ProcB author J. Benito Wainwright talk about research revealing that these 'leafy' structures also enhance attractiveness: cassyni.com/events/Mw6EA... 🧪

Episode 2 of Inside Geroscience is out now! tune in for our discussion with Dr. Luigi Ferrucci of the National Institute on Aging about his recent paper on epigenetic clocks, the dream of geroscience, and much more - available on all major podcast platforms. open.spotify.com/episode/1BOX...

Biological Clocks with Luigi FerrucciInside Geroscience · Episodeopen.spotify.com

Really excited to share that my first PhD chapter is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! 🕷️👀 We show that visually hunting spiders have repeatedly evolved forward-facing eyes, highlighting the remarkable evolutionary flexibility of their modular visual system. doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Hunting ecology predicts eye arrangements in the modular visual system of spidersPande et al. show that visually hunting spiders have convergently evolved forward-facing eyes. The positions and orientations of the eyes show the greatest morphological disparity and fastest evolutio...www.cell.com

A small contribution to an important topic, in Nature Reviews Biodiversity. I highlight @howbrainsevolve.bsky.social and Harvey's work in 2000 and illustrate it's pivotal role in our understanding into the principles of brain evolution. Have a read - it's short! www.nature.com/articles/s44...

🧵 New paper! We’re excited to release OPTICS: software that immediately predicts color sensitivity from any opsin protein sequence. In other words: give OPTICS any opsin sequence, and it predicts the wavelength of light the pigment is most sensitive to 🌈👁️ academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...

Accessible and Robust Machine Learning Approaches to Improve the Opsin Genotype-Phenotype MapAbstract. Predicting phenotypes from genetic variation is a central challenge in biology. Here, machine learning (ML) offers great promise, but its use isacademic.oup.com

Dwarf mongooses change their pre-emptive behaviour relative to the size of their neighbouring rivals🐻🥊 We leveraged 10 years of behaviour and GPS data to investigate the pre-emptive behavioural changes mongooses make to navigate a landscape of intergroup conflict: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Видео

Sexier in the city? Urban male great bowerbirds decorate bowers with human-made objects, creating brighter and more varied displays than rural males. Males strongly prefer human-made objects over natural ones, possibly boosting their appeal to females! shorturl.at/lcNY2 @royalsocietypublishing.org

Out today in @royalsocietypublishing.org - we show that crab spiders (the ones you usually see ambushing pollinators on flowers 🕷️🌸) get worse at hunting if their eyes are covered!🫣 Sounds obvious? It's actually quite surprising, here's why... 👀 (1/8) royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Pollinators matter for human health!🐝 Our new @nature.com paper traces links from wild pollinators>crops>nutrient intake & income of families in rural Nepal—showing how pollinator declines threaten health & livelihoods, but also how farmers can help manage these risks doi.org/10.1038/s415...

🚨Job claxon🚨 4-year #Postdoc available in our lab in @camzoology.bsky.social developing molecular and anatomical approaches to mapping evolutionary changes in the brain, using #Heliconiini butterflies. Come join us, we are nice. 🧪 www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

A team led by @anthropocenebio.bsky.social and @sangerinstitute.bsky.social with researchers from South America has found that some butterfly and moth species reuse the same two genes to evolve near identical colour patterns 🦋 Open access paper in @plosbiology.org doi.org/10.1371/jour... 🔓 📄

Evolution has reused the same genes for 120 million years, study showsScientists have shown that evolution has been using the same genetic ‘cheat sheet’ for over 120 million years, suggesting that life on earth may be more predictable than first imagined.www.york.ac.uk

Really excited to see @borreroja.bsky.social’s tour de force exploring the behavioural consequences of coordinated visual adaptations in *Heliconius*, and how these may break down in hybrids, out in the world. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Really excellent paper on the genetics of caterpillar butt ornaments journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

The last chapter of my PhD is finally out !!!! In the same species, on neighboring islands, we see radically different warning colors emerge. Evolution in action: Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilio: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Selection-driven color variation in the aposematic strawberry poison frog, Oophaga pumilioAguilar-Gómez et al. use exome sequencing of 347 strawberry poison frogs to uncover the genetic basis of color variation. They identify that kit, ttc39b, and bco1 underlie blue-red, yellow-red, and gr...www.cell.com

So happy to be presenting to one of my favorite community of scientists! (@neuroethology.org ) Come join us, to check out some of my “old” work with new insights about arthropod eyes and their molecular make-up! #Neuroethology

New from Jessie Foley! #Heliconius have elongated lives and excellent memory, but do they have excellent memory across their elongated lives? Find out now!* Featuring learning and memory assays in 330 butterflies, and an absolute pig of an experiment to do. *the title is a spoiler 🧪

New paper out: “allopatric” Drosophila species aren’t so allopatric after all. We show that most currently allopatric species pairs probably overlapped in the past and exchanged genes at levels similar to sympatric pairs. @evolletters.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/evle... [1/6]

Genomic analyses in Drosophila do not support the classic allopatric model of speciationAbstract. The allopatric model of speciation has dominated our understanding of speciation biology and biogeography since the Modern Synthesis. It is uncondoi.org