Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy
@avispatica.bsky.social
Assistant Professor @urochester.bsky.social| PI @tropbiolab.bsky.social |social behavior & brain |mechanisms underlying parasitic manipulation |adaptations & changing environments| #teamwasp #zombiewasp #strepsiptera |🇨🇷 #tica https://tropbiolab.org/FMKU/
How do parasites reprogram brains so your host becomes a zombie? If you are still at #ICN2026 tomorrow Friday, come to my talk at 3:30 pm (room 2306/2309) #strepsiptera #zombiewasp
Horse Paper Wasp (Polistes major) at Crew flint pen strand in Bonita Springs, Florida 7-28-26 with wingspan approaching 2” (5cm), the second-largest species in its genus Polistes. #ColorADay #YellowThu #yellow #eck #wasps #macro #macroPhotography #photography #bugSky #nature #art #threeWordGenre
Our new paper is out in @nature.com! We uncovered how a naked mole-rat queen 👑 controls an entire colony: a natural contraceptive scent that suppresses reproduction in other females! A remarkable mammalian parallel to bees and ants! 🐝🐜 @garyrlewin.bsky.social youtu.be/enfv3zJrWKM?...
Naked mole-rats are ruled by a queen: this chemical puts her in power
YouTube video by nature video
youtu.be
🌟🌟🌟Proud of Aidan, as part of the first cohort of our undergraduate researchers at the @nynathanshock.bsky.social Stay tuned for his finding! 🌟🌟 #aging #lifespan #teamwasp
Upstate NY Nathan Shock Center@nynathanshock.bsky.social · last mo.The Summer Undergraduate Scholars Program is in full swing! Aidan Flanders, an incoming senior majoring in Biology at the University of Rochester, is working closely with Dr. Floria Uy to investigate aging processes in social wasp colonies.
Which neural mechanisms do parasites use to control behavior, physiology, health, and lifespan in their hosts? Join our Mind Hackers symposium at the International Congress for Neuroethology! Saturday 25: 1-5 pm #ICN2026 @neuroethology.org Thanks to @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social for the image
We (me and @njdowdy.bsky.social) are hiring a PhD student! Come work with us! We seek a PhD student to investigate the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera within a comparative evolutionary framework... Job closes this week! Apply ASAP! njdowdy.gitlab.io/balogh-fello...
Kenneth F. Balogh Graduate Student Fellowship
A PhD position investigating the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera, co-advised by Dr. Nicolas J. Dowdy (Milwaukee Public Museum) and Dr. Chelsea Cook (Marquette University). Apply by June ...
njdowdy.gitlab.io
📣 SEMINAR SERIES 2026 📣 Our first seminar of the year is coming up fast! 🐜🐝 🎥 Check out this teaser! Come listen to Dr. Anna Dornhaus ( @dornhaus.bsky.social ) to hear about “What we learned about the world from studying collective behavior: algorithms, replicators, and strong inference”
I completely agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene is a sentence I never thought I would ever write.
Slaughtering our golden goose: massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration
Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.
nature.com
A famous Cambodian mine-clearing rat, who was awarded a gold medal for his heroism, has been commemorated with a statue. Using his acute sense of smell to detect a chemical compound within explosives, Magawa would then alert human handlers of mines. 🧪🐀💥🏅 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Cambodia unveils a statue of famous landmine-sniffing rat Magawa
The statue honours the late African giant pouched rat who sniffed out more than 100 landmines during his lifetime.
bbc.co.uk
I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.
Fantastic meeting full of amazing people and ideas! 🌟💡Thank you to everyone for the stimulating proposals and continued support.
Research Corporation for Science Advancement@rescorp.org · 5mo agoThe 2nd meeting of #Scialog: Neurobiology and Changing Ecosystems ends today with pitches for team research projects to explore how neural systems adapt to today’s rapid environmental changes. - with @allenphilanthro.bsky.social, the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation, @kavlifoundation.org.
The mating of Stylops ater in the aggregation of Andrena vaga at the Institute for Bee Protection at the @jki-research.bsky.social in Braunschweig vaga is in full swing. #BeesUp
Thank you to @animalbehaviour.live for the opportunity and their wonderful initiative to make conferences more accessible to all!
Animal Behaviour Live@animalbehaviour.live · 5mo ago🎙️ New Meet the P.I. podcast episode with Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy (@avispatica.bsky.social) is out! Becoming a P.I., building a lab culture, navigating academia as an international researcher and more ✨ 🎧 Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/24sj... 📺 YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iswt...
🌟🌟Interested in a postdoctoral project about host-parasite coevolution and/or underlying mechanisms? 🌟🌟 Check your eligibility for this fellowship & contact me. I am particularly interested in hosting scholars from the Global South (¡Arriba mi gente!). www.hfsp.org/funding/hfsp...
Postdoctoral Fellowships | Human Frontier Science Program
hfsp.org
From cabinets to collectomics: discovering females and primary larvae of Strepsiptera in a historical collection nhcm.pensoft.net/articles.php...
From cabinets to collectomics: discovering females and primary larvae of Strepsiptera in a historical collection
Natural history collections house material from centuries of collecting efforts. In the Phyletisches Museum Jena (PMJ), ca. 1 Mio specimens are deposited, some of them dating back as far as the 17th c...
nhcm.pensoft.net
Wonderful weird: 3D reconstruction of the tracheal system and balloon gut of the male Stylops ovinae. #Strepsiptera
Introducing the Yato Protected Area -- the largest federally protected conservation area of the Solomon Islands! We are humbled to have been given the opportunity to partner with indigenous communities in Makira to save threatened ecosystems. #conservation #SolomonIslands #biodiversity
Our synthesis of the Strepsiptera fauna of the Nordic countries, led by Meri Lähteenaro, was published this week open acc. in Zootaxa. Illustrated keys, maps, new records & 2 new species described, Stylops sapmiensis on Andrena lapponica & S. serotinus on A. fuscipes. mapress.com/zt/article/v...
Review of the Strepsiptera fauna of the Nordic countries with the description of two new species of Stylops Kirby (Stylopidae) | Zootaxa
mapress.com
POSTDOC ALERT🚨 Two exciting social evolution postdoc positions live today! We're looking for two excellent field biologists. Join us to explore the evolution of sociality in wasps across Africa. Apply by 11th January. Collaboration with @dustinrubenstein.com @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
The final version of the clonal raider ant reference brain is now out OA in @currentbiology.bsky.social: 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A reference brain for the clonal raider ant
Ants exhibit remarkable collective and social behaviors, such as alloparental care,1 chemical communication,2 homing,3 and cooperative group hygiene.4…
sciencedirect.com
Daniel Kronauer@danielkronauer.bsky.social · 10mo agoNew preprint from the lab: A reference brain for the clonal raider ant. With this resource, which is based on 40 individual brains, you can register and compare all kinds of samples in a common space. It comes with lots of detailed protocols and a user-friendly GUI. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Despite all challenges, I'm feeling so grateful for my team & their amazing research progress. Also, thrilled that Dr. RJ Millena @entomolrj.bsky.social has joined #teamwasp as our inaugural departmental postdoc fellow! #wasplove #strepsipteralove
Want to work with an amazing new PI who is also a wonderful person? ⬇️ 🕸️🕷️
Jay Stafstrom@jaystafstrom.bsky.social · 9mo ago🚨Good news, everyone! 1) I'm thrilled to be joining the behavior powerhouse that is Indiana University!! So stoked, starting Jan 2026. 2) I'm recruiting grad students! Are you (or your trainee) interested in sensory ecology? behavior? evolution? fieldwork? spiders? Drop me a line Jstafstr(at)iu.edu
it's my daughter's birthday and I ordered her a monster cake from Carvel and this is the picture on the website and this is the picture of it in real life. please note: this is not a complaint. if this had been the picture on the website i would have paid more
I am thrilled to announce that I just opened my lab at New York University in @nyucns.bsky.social and Biology! Our work will explore the richness of animal behavior, dissecting the genetic and circuit mechanisms that shape its evolution.
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!
Bugs Need Heroes Podcast@bugsneedheroes.bsky.social · 11mo agoThis episode Amanda and Kelly discuss twisted-wing insects (Strepsiptera) with Dr Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy an assistant professor at the University of Rochester and a Levinson/Shapiro faculty scholar. @avispatica.bsky.social
