🚨🦋 Thrilled to share my first PhD paper published in PNAS this week, in collaboration with Sören Kannegieser and @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social @insect-vision.bsky.social: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We found hawkmoths use a convergent visual control strategy for appendage guidance. 👁️🫳 🧵 below.

Preparations are in full swing, and the excitement is building for our Lepidopteran Satellite Meeting @neuroethology.org #ICN2026 with @alexhaverkamp.bsky.social and Simon Sponberg 🦋🐛

Congratulations to Anupama @manel-a-pama.bsky.social, who won the Poster Prize at the annual biology Poster Session! She will also bring her poster to #ICN26 in Vancouver, so stay tuned 🦋🌸 @neuroethology.org

New paper from the lab 🎉 We compared learning across differential conditioning paradigms in the hummingbird hawkmoth and, surprisingly, associations were worse with strong negative reinforcements. Find out how reinforcements like quinine interfere with learning in these hawkmoths 👇

Anupama Manel@manel-a-pama.bsky.social · last mo.

Stronger punishments get better results? Not for this hawkmoth 👀🚫 Check out our new paper where we link sensory ecology to colour discrimination learning in an insect pollinator. Shout out to co-authors @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social and @jjfosterlab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

Incredible insect-light display last night at lake Konstanz!! #insect #flight #dance #nature #photography

Do bright lights change how you dance? 🔆💃 Waggle-dancing honeybees interpret bright UV & green as the sun, but dim UV as a patch of sky. Thanks Keram Pfeiffer @uni-wuerzburg.de for trusting me with your data & @jgraving.bsky.social for the circular GLMM. doi.org/10.21203/rs....

@gkolyfetis.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de presenting his work on bee navigation at the annual meeting of the Beekeepers of Baden in Radolfzell 🍯🐝. Thank you for the invitation! Great to see the public interest in science and find out what we can learn from each other. 👁️🧭

Enjoyed watching the #mason #bees that moved into the little bee house on our balcony feast from our rhododendron. The way they wedge themselves into the flowers 😄 They might also have found some little extra sugary surprises - it was Easter after all 🐰🌸🐝 #WildlifePhotography #insect #bee #macro

Special issue editors @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social, Basil el Jundi & Kentaro Arikawa introduce their special issue on the neuroethology of lepidoptera 🦋. The issue covers a broad field of research spanning from neuroanatomy, sensory perception to behavior. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Neuroethology on the move with butterflies and moths - Journal of Comparative Physiology A

Journal of Comparative Physiology A - Lepidopteran insects, namely butterflies and moths, are visually striking and have fascinated scientists as well as the general public for decades, prompting...

link.springer.com

New paper out on the decision strategies of bumblebees. When using visual cues to make flower choices, they switch strategy with sensory context, learning as much as necessary, but as little as possible. Based on their training time, we propose a mechanism for this switch. tinyurl.com/2r9d4jrs 🌸🐝🧠

Bees flexibly adjust decision strategies to information content in a foraging task

Bumblebees flexibly adjust their learning strategies to the sensory challenge, balancing costs and benefits of multicue learning.

tinyurl.com

Universität Konstanz@uni-konstanz.de · 5mo ago

During their search for food, most insects head specifically for the flowers that promise the highest reward. Researchers from the #UniKonstanz and the @uni-wuerzburg.de have now studied how bumblebees process information about their food sources. Full story: t1p.de/mndcd

Excited to share my first PhD preprint! w/ Sören Kannegieser and @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social @insect-vision.bsky.social We investigated how hawkmoths coordinate lateralized sensory and motor control for appendage guidance, revealing similar control principles to vertebrates doi.org/10.64898/202...

New paper from the lab, led by @ronjabigge.bsky.social, in collaboration with Kentaro Arikawa. We reconcile contrast and spatial processing functions of lamina monopolar cells by integrating 3D morphology, connectivity and neurophysiology in the hummingbird hawkmoth. tinyurl.com/mvnh3325 For more 👇

Visiting the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart for our science-art collaboration with the Akademie and @zukunftskolleg.bsky.social Konstanz. Excited to see the final student projects inspired by vision in insects after this field trip!

Season's Greetings from the Lab in our most - Christmas party award winning !! - festive attire. 🎄👼🐮👑🐑⭐ With animalistic support from @jjfosterlab.bsky.social Happy holidays and a great start into the New Year to you all! extra Christmassy stars to anyone who guesses what we are 😉

Great fun to participate in the #UniKonstanz Open Science Slam 2025 🎤✨🤓 Presented insights of our "market research" on insect preferences for flowers - with support from citizen science. Lineup of fantastic speakers and an amazing audience ! Big thanks to the #TeamOpenScience for organising.

Universität Konstanz@uni-konstanz.de · last yr.

🚀 Call for Participation: #UniKonstanz Open Science Slam 2025! 🎤✨ Got a research project you’re passionate about? Want to present it in a fun, engaging way? Join the Open Science Slam at the University of Konstanz! 📅 24 June 2025 📍 R0712, 18:00 CET Details: t1p.de/vlxt9

How do insects use vision to interact with flowers? IMPRS-QBEE student @lochlanw.bsky.social, working with @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social tells us more about his work on hummingbird hawkmoths and how they interact with flower patterns @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social youtube.com/shorts/juEhw...

Lochlan Walsh | Insect sensory biology

YouTube video by Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

youtube.com

Best audience ever - 100+ children at a live show of the BR Lachlabor radio show, where I was invited for expertise on animal questions. 🤓🐆🐦🦗 What I learned: we should also have dance breaks for adult events!

We had a rather unexpected presenter at our lab meeting this morning 😄🪲🎓

Thanks to this #hummingbird #hawkmoth, which enjoyed a late season snack of ornamental salvia, I have collected proof that insects are input-output systems 😂💦! #insect #nature #photography

Very excited to take part in #ABL2025 👇

Animal Behaviour Live@animalbehaviour.live · 12mo ago

#ABL2025 Plenary Spotlight: Dr Anna Stöckl @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social ⭐ Join us on Nov 13-14 to learn how Dr Stöckl’s team @insect-vision.bsky.social unravelled the fascinating ways in which pollinators see the hidden patterns of flowers.🦋🌻 Learn more about the conference: ablaoc25.sciencesconf.org

Our findings on bees' photoreceptors are now officially published in Biology Letters of the Royal Society Publishing!! Thanks again for a productive collaboration @jjfosterlab.bsky.social and @gregoeur.bsky.social !! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

George Kolyfetis@gkolyfetis.bsky.social · last yr.

I'm really happy to share the first preprint of my PhD work in @jjfosterlab.bsky.social! During a fruitful collaboration with @gregoeur.bsky.social, we uncovered a surprising feature of bees' eyes! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Bit of an orgy going on at the moment 😆... Every other Scabiosa flower is hosting one or more six-spot burnets (Blutströpfchen in German). I was wondering why they are mating this late: it is the caterpillar stage that overwinters in this species 🤓🦋❄️! #insect #nature #photography

Dressing up fancy for a day out? This little guy made sure to match his flower background with a smashing yellow "moustache". 🐝🌸 Drone of Bombus lapidarius, the red-tailed #bumblebee (Steinhummel). #photography #insect

Beautiful work by @ronjabigge.bsky.social and Rebecca Grittner is out 🥳 How do the statistics of natural visual scenes and the relevance of these stimuli for the moths' flight safety shape the integration of parallel pathways for flight guidance? ✈️🦋

Visual Insect Neuroethology Group@insect-vision.bsky.social · last yr.

New work from the lab - final version out: #parallel #processing #optic_flow #flight #vision In hummingbird hawkmoth flight control, natural input prevalence shapes the visual field partitioning of two parallel pathways, but safety relevance determines the integration hierarchy. tinyurl.com/bdfsxea2

After days of torrential rains, we had a few hours of sunshine today - which were enjoyed by humans and insects alike 🌸🐝 there is a great number of large hoverflies around - any idea what species these might be? #insect #pollinator #hoverfly #photography

It was a pleasure to be part of this wonderful podcast! I can highly recommend to check out all episodes (there is a whole first season to explore as well 🤓).

Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour@cbehav.bsky.social · last yr.

Check out the newest episode of our podcast "In the Swarm"! Have you ever wondered how tiny insects navigate the world? In this episode, @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social explains how the tiny but mighty insect brain controls behaviour of stunning complexity. www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/collective-b...

Float like a hawkmoth and drink like one too! What better way to understand insect behaviour? 🍹🦋🍹 An exciting evening of science outreach by the lake, by @cbehav.bsky.social ‪‪‪@excinequality.bsky.social‬ With moth impersonators: @emmarusconi.bsky.social @manel-a-pama.bsky.social ky.social‬

Congratulations to @ronjabigge.bsky.social to an awesome #PhD and a great defense at Würzburg University! #proudPI She was welcomed home and celebrated in style with @insect-vision.bsky.social and the whole neurobiology community in Konstanz.

@ronjabigge.bsky.social · last yr.

I did it😭 I'm thrilled, relieved, and so excited to announce that I have successfully defended my PhD! Endless thanks to everyone who supported me along the way - mentors, labmates, friends, and family. I couldn't have done it without you❤️ #PhDone

Really excited for our research to be featured in this beautiful #preLight article about our study Bumblebees flexibly adjust learning and decision strategies to sensory information content in a foraging task by Tim Schwanitz & Cemre Coskun. 🐝

preLights@prelights.bsky.social · last yr.

So many features…so little time: bumblebees show optimization of cue integration in a memory task. 🐝🐝 Really entertaining #preLight prepared by Tim Schwanitz & Cemre Coskun in which they highlight recent work from @anna-stoeckl.bsky.social & team ⬇️ 👀 prelights.biologists.com/highlights/b...

I'm really happy to share the first preprint of my PhD work in @jjfosterlab.bsky.social! During a fruitful collaboration with @gregoeur.bsky.social, we uncovered a surprising feature of bees' eyes! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...