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! 🦋🧪

Stephen Montgomery@ebablab.bsky.social · last wk.

A very nice observation and write up of gaurding behaviour in #Heliconius sapho by @ficusorganensis.bsky.social! esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Go Sam! 💪

International Society for Neuroethology@neuroethology.org · last wk.

First awardee is @samjakeengland.bsky.social presenting their research on #ecology of #electrostatics⚡️🌸🦋🐝🐛 #pollination #parasitism #predatorpreyinteractions Congratulations, Sam! 🥳👍

📢 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!

Lauren Sumner-Rooney@laurensr.bsky.social · 4mo ago

So excited to have received an #HFSPResearchGrant to study trilobite eyes with Luke Parry @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social and Gil Ju Lee (Pusan National University)!🥳 I'll be recruiting a postdoc @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - if 3D data, optical modelling, and fossils tickle your interest, stay tuned!

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... 🧪

Royal Society Publishing@royalsocietypublishing.org · 2mo ago

New research from #ProcB: Naturally selected and sexually selected wing structures synergistically enhance the attractiveness of katydid acoustic signals doi.org/10.1098/rspb... | #Behaviour #Biophysics #Evolution

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 Ferrucci

Inside Geroscience · Episode

open.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 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

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...

Spectacular work from @jessicafoley14.bsky.social officially establishing #Heliconius as a model for yet another cool thing! 👏

Jessica Foley@jessicafoley14.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Very excited to finally have this out in the world! The first paper from my PhD (and my first first-author publication) makes the case for a new entrant to the world of long-lived animal models: Heliconius butterflies. Out now in @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/10)

🧵 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

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...

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

Leaf-mimicking katydids don’t just use their funky camouflage to survive, they’re using it to find love too! 🥰🍃💘 New paper out now in #ProcB @royalsocietypublishing.org (Photo cred: Christian Ziegler): doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 1/n

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...

Go listen to @jessicafoley14.bsky.social’s new podcast! 📻👨‍🦳

Jessica Foley@jessicafoley14.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Finally answered the "should we start a podcast" call that waits for us all... Episode 1 of Inside Geroscience is out now! Tune in for conversations about the biology of ageing with leading scientists in the field. Brought to you by the Academy of Geroscience, available on all podcast platforms.

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 shows

Scientists 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.

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 pumilio

Aguilar-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...

cell.com

Introducing the campest katydid of all time. 🦄💅🏽👸💞 Why would this animal (Arota festae) have evolved this way, other than to look utterly fabulous? We have unleashed some (slightly whacky) thoughts, now out in @esajournals.bsky.social. Photo credit: @zekerowe.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/ecy.... 1/n

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 🧪

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Cognitive robustness in a new insect model of extended longevity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.25.701637v1

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 speciation

Abstract. The allopatric model of speciation has dominated our understanding of speciation biology and biogeography since the Modern Synthesis. It is uncon

doi.org

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 Need to #camouflage on the move? Easy - simply seek out something that's coloured like you and move along with it! 🐠 Read the latest #trumpetfish instalment here: tinyurl.com/4tb5h5hk @royalsociety.org #shadowing #predator #experiment #marine #movement

Bravo Rochelle on this huge and amazing piece of work! 👏👏👏

Rochelle Meah@rochellemeah.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Multiple anthropogenic stressors can negatively impact species but can a single stressor also have multiple, concurrent impacts? Here we show that light pollution creates several simultaneous impacts to the nocturnal movement ecology of a moth and a spider: tinyurl.com/5eku5bff (1/5)

How to be a convincing leaf! Learning about the spectrum of leafiness with @benitoexplains.bsky.social 🍃 🐛 🍃 🐛 #ASABWinter2025

blown away by this, given the names of previous winners - recent and not so recent - hugely grateful to @zslofficial.bsky.social, and all the many students, postgrads, postdocs and collaborators who have helped make the last 14 years so fun and exciting Will go back to avoiding cameras now… 🫣

ZSL@zslofficial.bsky.social · 8mo ago

The ZSL Scientific Medal is also awarded to Professor Stephen Montgomery, @bristolbiosci.bsky.social whose research has provided insights into the relationships between ecological niche specialisation, brain structure, and cognitive function 🏅 @ebablab.bsky.social

🚨Two funded PhDs on the evolutionary ecology of antipredator colouration 🦋 with myself and Iliana Medina. One in Swansea tinyurl.com/4thtbph6 deadline Jan 12th @crocus-dla.bsky.social The other in Melbourne - deadline Jan 1st Please share among potential students!