Some crane flies in the genus #Geranomyia produce a little gel nursery to develop on leaves in the tropics. There they graze on algae & other organic matter. The mass provides moisture (other spp. live in water/soil) & likely protects from predators. #Tipulidae #Limoniidae #FlySchool2026 Costa Rica

🚨🦋 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.

"The next time you hover over [a scallop] on a dive, remember you’re not just looking at a shell with eyes. You’re looking at an animal that’s also looking at you." Lovely quote by Dan Speiser

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 3w ago

The ‘Surprisingly Sophisticated’ Way Scallops See This mollusk might be a lot more complicated than you think www.scubadiving.com/marinelife/s...

Our postdoc @roald-arboel.com made a thing! #Croppy is #free and awesome for fast and effective #video #editing and it has a #GUI! Need to crop a part of a video? Need to trim a video? Need to combine videos? Need to compress a video? roald-arboel.com/croppy/

What time is it? It’s #Cheliceratime & #FossilFriday! Today's entry is our first oribatid mite! It's also to my knowledge this species' first paleoart! All the basic infos are here but if you want to learn more, there’s more in the thread below!⬇️🧵 #mite #arachnid #paleoart #bugsky #invert 1/3

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 spiders

Pande 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...

cell.com

Such an interesting paper! I love thinking about spider eyes 👀👀👀👀

Lauren Sumner-Rooney@laurensr.bsky.social · last mo.

Beyond proud of @atal-pande.bsky.social, whose first PhD chapter is out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social! Atal shows that spiders that use their vision to hunt have convergently evolved similar eye arrangements, which imply lots of resampling of frontal space www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Opilione parental care is so cool! One of the few arachnids (if not the only?) with some species that have exclusive paternal care!

Dr. Ivan Magalhaes 🕷️@6eyes8legs.bsky.social · last mo.

Did you know that in harvesters (Opiliones) either males or females may take care of the eggs? Machado et al. gathered data from the field and literature on parental care in these arachnids, but half their data comes from community science @inaturalist records doi.org/10.1093/zool...

Keeping the Pride Spirit Alive! 🌈 Hope you all celebrated this past month! We’ve gathered some fascinating examples of queer behaviour in nature to share with you.

🧵 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 Map

Abstract. Predicting phenotypes from genetic variation is a central challenge in biology. Here, machine learning (ML) offers great promise, but its use is

academic.oup.com

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...

Very excited to share our discovery of an engineering masterpiece from the Australian rainforest! In our latest paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social we report a hunting strategy in a spider, whose web outperforms every known biological catapult system.

Cephalopods 🐙 can employ mirror reflections for spatial navigation. They understand the concept of the mirror and can use it to approach otherwise occluded prey. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Octopus bimaculoides can learn to utilize a mirror to localize a reward outside the line of sight

Mirror-mediated localization of hidden objects is well documented in vertebrates1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 but has never been demonstrated in inverteb…

sciencedirect.com

New paper alert!🕷️✨ Tiny spider. Shiny abdomen. Suspiciously wiggly bum. In our new study, we asked what abdomen bobbing in this jumping spider is really all about: Cute? Yes. Meaningful? Let’s find out...! [1/8] @unibonn.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-026-03745-1

🕷️Wolf spiders! 💌Courtship! 🦠Infection! 👀Visual receptivity! Our #EditorsChoice for the #AnimalBehaviourJournal: “Infection stress and mate assessment in wolf spiders: female mate choice varies with sensory mode of male courtship” Read here: doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2026.123540

ヒメマメザトウムシ。体長は1.5mmほど。主に4〜6月に見つかりますが、マメザトウムシのように樹表面に出てくることはなく、ずっと落ち葉層やガレ場などで暮らしています。 神出鬼没で新規の場所で狙って探すことはかなり無理があるものの、いると分かっている場所であれば丹念に探すと大体毎年見つかります。目がすごく大きく見えますが、それはアイシャドウのような黒い部分のおかげ。それでも他のグループと比べたら頭胸部に対しての目の比率はかなりのもので、ちゃんと獲物を目で認識して捕食する肉食の種です。

SO excited to have found a few lampshade spiders in the southern Appalachians! These are some of the most early-diverging araneomorphs (so-called 'true spiders') alive today!

Naphrys pulex courtship (it went on for 2+ minutes before I was like you know maybe I could film this, the people might like it). Salticids are the best 🥹 #EmotionalSupportSpood

And another day in this week of high relevance for neureothologists or any human being: #InternationalDayforBiodiversity with the motto "Acting locally for global impact" ✅️ www.un.org/en/observanc... 💚 Feel free to share you favourite #neuroethology project related to #biodiversity below 👇

International Day for Biological Diversity | United Nations

Biological diversity — or biodiversity — is the term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms. The biodiversity we see today is the fruit of billions of years of evoluti...

un.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...

my first ever scorpionfly! any ID help appreciated :)

Our paper is out today in Nature Communications! www.nature.com/articles/s41... It started with a simple question: how do visual systems cope with extremely fast movements?

Synaptic high-frequency jumping synchronises vision to high-speed behaviour - Nature Communications

How insects maintain precise vision during rapid motion remains unclear. Here, the authors show that motion-driven photoreceptor dynamics and synaptic high-frequency jumping enable hyperacute, minimal...

nature.com

New pre-print out, how behaviour shapes camouflage evolution for spiders! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

if i were a bug, i would 1000% be falling for this 🤤

One of the most brilliant purples 💜 I've ever seen in nature! Dicaelus purpuratus!

メガケリセラックス/メガケリケラックス クストーイ Megachelicerax cousteaui 長大な鋏角と間隔の広い側棘を持つカンブリア紀の基盤的な鋏角類。 A cambrian basal chelicerate with elongated chelicerae and widely-spaced lateral spines. #paleoart

Jun@jun075.bsky.social · 4mo ago

#みんなでつくるBluesky古生物図鑑 メガケリケラックス クストーイ Megachelicerax cousteaui カンブリア紀 Drumian アメリカ（Wheeler Formation） 背甲~後体第9節8.4cm 海産 節足動物 Arthropoda ステム鋏角類 Stem Chelicerata

New chelicerate fossil alert!!! This time it's a triple threat: Cambrian Chelicerate with (visible and obvious) Chelicerae !!!

Nature@nature.com · 4mo ago

Spiders and scorpions belong to a group called chelicerates, which are arthropods with pincers at the front of their head. Fossil evidence reveals how this group evolved go.nature.com/4meGcrp

Mourning gecko for this Monday morning

🚨 AN APPRECIATION POST FOR BRISTLETAILS!! My 3 fav facts in order of objective coolness: -They have a downward-facing ocellus (eye) -This is the only animal eye known to use xanthine for its tapetum (mirror) -They have structurally-colored scales 🦋 Taking nominations for additional cool facts!!!

Ever wonder why everything is blurry when you open your eyes underwater? The answer explained in this video seminar by @tannermierow.bsky.social and myself, recapping our new paper on amphibious vision in compound eyes! cassyni.com/events/Ur5pU...