iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 07/10/2026

Can you even see the info about the Nobel prize in chemistry on @theguardian.com's website? I had to use the ctrl+F option to find it. WTF does a scientist need to do to get some publicity, if a NOBEL PRIZE isn't enough? By contrast, remember how much Jason Arday we saw over summer? #academicsky 🧪

Screenshot from the Guardian; big headlines about film and television and a teeny heading about the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 05/10/2026

Most birds that grow breeding plumage might look a bit fancy, but are at least recognisable as the same species as before. Enter the Malagasy pond heron, Ardeola idae. Nothing's too fabulous for that one. (Left: non-breeding/juvenile, right: breeding individual) 🧪🪶🦚

Drab greyish heron.
Image: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/79771861 by Zak Pohlen

Flamboyant white mop with a blue beak.
Image: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/149644051 by Jacek Betleja

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 04/10/2026

Wonderful to see poems by @brianbilston.bsky.social in Florence Park today. I hope they become a regular fixture! #oxford

Pavement with chalk writing:

In the park,
the tall trees are waving
in the afternoon breeze.

I wave back
only to realize they are waving
at the person behind me.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 30/09/2026

Insect declines threaten wildlife far beyond insect world. Apart from being food, insects provide other species with homes, protection, chemical defence and sanitation - to name a few things. Great review article by @r-cooke.bsky.social with BEAUTIFUL visuals. 🧪🪳 www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Visuals demonstrating the following:

Many freshwater fish eat insects
Parrots nest in termite mounds
Chimpanzees use insects on wounds
Poisonous frogs get toxins from ants and beetles.

73% of studied vertebrate species eat invertebrates

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 29/09/2026

A nice surprise from Google for #FatBearWeek! 🐻 Vote for your favourite chonky bear here: explore.org/fat-bear-week 🧪

Google game with a bear when you search for "fat bear week"

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 23/09/2026

You've heard of Wordle and Squardle - but do you know Birdle? Six guesses to identify the bird of the day. Nine games per day based on the species' geography. 🧪 🪶 🐦 www.play-birdle.com/af/

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 23/09/2026

What time of the year is it? It's FAT BEAR WEEK! It's been so popular that their website is having issues - but check periodically to see if you can vote for the chonkiest chonk on @fatbearweek.bsky.social 🐻 🧪 explore.org/fat-bear-wee...

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 09/09/2026

Our cohort of @lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk Ecological Survey Techniques students are saying hello to a Natterer's bat at Wytham Woods as part of their field methods training. PSA: don't handle bats without a license (or without gloves). 🧪🦇

A bat sitting on a gloved hand, with people in the background.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 04/09/2026

The IgNobel for Biomechanics goes to @matildabrindle.bsky.social, @stuwest.bsky.social and C. Talbot for a precise definition of kissing (provided in the comment below). That's well and good, but I think Dr Brindle's work on non-reproductive sex behaviours should be getting an IgNobel too. 🧪💋

Black-tailed prairie dogs "kissing." Photo by Brocken Inaglory, Wikimedia Commons

A female Toque macaque (Macaca sinica) with baby at Katagamuwa sanctuary. Photo: Senthi Aathavan Senthilverl, Wikimedia Commons

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 02/09/2026

Darwin having a good ol' moan in his letters. So rel. #AcademicSky 🧪

I loathe, I abhor the sea, & all ships which sail on it.
I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before.
I am very tired, very stomachy& hate nearly the whole world.
I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.
I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.

- Charles Darwin in various letters between 1836 and 1862.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 14/08/2026

Monkeys make friends with other species, and that can tell us a lot about how keeping pets came about. Great article by @cyrilgrueter.bsky.social et al., reporting friendly primate interactions with a whopping 55 non-primate species! 🧪🐒🐕 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Examples of affiliative interspecific interactions involving non-human primates. a Adult female white-faced capuchin (Cebus imitator) monkey grooming an adult female black-handed spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) in Santa Rosa, Costa Rica; photo by Nicholas Chapoy. b Capped langur (Trachypithecus pileatus) grooming a Phayre's leaf monkey (Trachypithecus phayrei) in Satchari National Park Bangladesh; photo by Sabit Hasan. c A tufted gray langur (Semnopithecus priam) stroking a grizzled giant squirrel (Ratufa macroura) in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka; photo by Senthi Aathavan Senthilverl, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. d Stump-tailed macaques (Macaca arctoides) grooming a domestic dog at Khao Tao Mo temple, Thailand; photo by Neil Challis. e Female northern white-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys) holding a mouse at the Shanghai Zoo, China; photo by Cyril Grueter. f Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) mounting and riding on the back of a sika deer (Cervus nippon) at Yakushima, Japan; photo by Alexandre Bonnefoy and Cédric Sueur. g Young juvenile black-and-white snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus bieti) playing on a domestic pig at Xiangguqing, Yunnan Golden Monkey National Park, China; photo by Yanpeng Li. h) Ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) grooming a southern bamboo lemur (Hapalemur meridionalis) in Mandena, Madagascar; photo by Timothy Eppley

A tufted gray langur (Semnopithecus priam) stroking a grizzled giant squirrel.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 06/07/2026

Orangutans are solitary species, so, theoretically, opportunities for early socialisation are scarce. What do orangutan mums do? They go out of their way to arrange playdates for their kids. Research by @oddjacobson.bsky.social @bjjbarrett.bsky.social et al: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧪🌏🐵

Female orangutan with her young baby in Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, Sabah, Malaysia; photo by Bernard Dupont, Wikimedia Commons

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 19/06/2026

Do you know about the Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social? A great resource for nature-related collaborative work, with biodiversity literature and images made publicly available. www.biodiversitylibrary.org Drawing of a dusky titi monkey, from Description des mammifères. 🧪🌍🪶🦊

Drawing of a dusky titi monkey, from Description des mammifères, Paris: Le Muséum,1843

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 10/06/2026

I will speak. It shall be entertaining. 🪧The Animal Butt Compendium: the ABC of Zoological Rear Ends 🍑From species that breathe through their bums, to those using their derrieres as weapons and ones that communicate through farting - there's something for everyone. 📆 1 Jul, London 🎟️ Tickets below.

Common rain frog bottom. Image from https://www.youtube.com/@pampermoony

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 05/06/2026

Exciting stuff - British pounds are getting a revamp and will feature wildlife. You can pick two animals in each category (mammals, birds and what looks like "creatures without eyelashes"). Vote here until July 3: www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/he... 🧪💷🌏

The shortlist

Mammals
bottlenose dolphin
brown hare
European hedgehog
grey seal
pine marten
red fox

Birds
Atlantic puffin
barn owl
common kingfisher
Eurasian curlew
great spotted woodpecker
white-tailed eagle

Amphibians, insects and fish
Atlantic salmon
basking shark
buff-tailed bumblebee
common frog
emperor dragonfly
marsh fritillary butterfly

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 03/06/2026

🪶 Birds masturbate. 🦜 This is normal, and not (as often is believed) a maladaptive behaviour only found in captivity. 🍑 Pet bird owners - chill, and let your budgie have some fun. 🧪 Study of masturbation in 120 bird species, by @matildabrindle.bsky.social: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Yellow budgerigar, photo by Frances76 (Wikimedia Commons)

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 22/05/2026

Have you heard of OneZoom Tree of Life Explorer? It's a great tool for visualising how all biodiversity in the world is related. And since it's #BiodiversityDay, well... Find yourself a friend whose love language is "I sponsored a slime mold for you". www.onezoom.org 🧪🌏 🦊🐦🐝 #biodiversity

A OneZoom node saying: Dictyostelium purpureum, sponsored for Dr Joanna Bagniewska

A snapshot of OneZoom, showing different taxonomic groups.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 20/05/2026

Study by Sabrina Rondeau and @nigeleraine.bsky.social on what happens with submerged bumblebee queens. Spoiler alert: they are generally fine. royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article... 🧪 #WorldBeeDay

Three bee submersion regimes - control (no water), left to float and maintained underwater. Figure from Rondeau and Raine (2024).

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 20/05/2026

🧪 In a study, bumblebee queens were overwintered in refrigerated test tubes - but an experimental mishap led to four tubes accumulating water. 🐝 Now we know that bumblebee 👸 can survive being submerged for a week - which makes sense, because in the wild their burrows may get flooded. 🌍 #WorldBeeDay

Common eastern bumblebee, Bombus impatiens, on a plant. Photo by Mousebelt (Wikimedia Commons)

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 18/05/2026

🕷️You're a smallish spider with big decoy ambitions 🕸️You patiently weave bits and bobs into your web to camouflage yourself, or to appear bigger 🏵️Your elaborate web decorations (stabilimenta) are made of delicate silk What do you get called? A "TRASHLINE orb weaver". 🤦‍♀️ Arachnologists... 🧪🌍

Trashline Orbweaver - Cyclosa walckenaeri - by Judy Gallagher (Wikimedia Commons)

Cyclosa octotuberculata spider on a trashline, source: Wikimedia Commons

Web debris spider (Cyclosa insulana) making patterns on a web - Charles J Sharp, Wikimedia Commons

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 08/05/2026

The first species to be named after David Attenborough (in 1993) is Attenborosaurus conybeari. The Attenborosaurus is an extinct marine reptile from the Early Jurassic. Over 50 species have been named after Sir David - who turns 100 today. Happy birthday! 🧪🦕🌍

Life restoration of the Attenborosaurus with Asteroceras obtusum Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.ca/)

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 30/04/2026

Your name in Landsat, courtesy of NASA: science.nasa.gov/specials/you... Addictive. 🧪🛰️

JOANNA spelled in satellite images of land forms

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 22/04/2026

It's #EarthDay, so here's an invite to a topical (and free!) event. 🥬Lessons in resilience: Nature, heritage and sustainability - a panel discussion 📆 6 May, 17.30-18.30 📍The Hub, @kelloggoxford.bsky.social What can nature and our shared past teach us about surviving change? Come and find out. 🧪

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 30/03/2026

The Modern Bestiary: like the medieval bestiary, but with less moralising and more wildlife. Also more butts, sex and grossness. I will be talking about bestiaries in general and The Modern Bestiary in particular at @pubsci.bsky.social in London on 15 Apr. Booking link below. #SciComm 🧪🪶🦊 #BookSky

Joanna reading The Modern Bestiary to a dead bear.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 20/03/2026

"Oi, get your eyes off my eggs!" Fish know when you're staring at them - and they don't like it. Tourists, avert your gaze, please. 🧪🐠👀 Study of emperor cichlids: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Male (left) and female (right) emperor cichlid B. microlepis breeders with free-swimming fry. Image from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/view-large/figure/19969769/rsos.251919.f001.tif

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 10/03/2026

Pangolins in numbers (thanks to @danchallender.bsky.social's brilliant talk): - Largest: a 48kg pangzilla (Indian pangolin) - Scaliest: Philippine pangolin, ~1000 per animal - Most vertebrae in tail: 47, long-tailed pangolin (duh) Pangolins are surprisingly strong - some enough to kill a leopard! 🧪

Indian pangolin, photo by Sandip Kumar, Wikimedia Commons

Long-tailed, or black-bellied, pangolin - photo by US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wikimedia Commons

A Philippine Pangolin pup nudges its mother, rolled up into a protective ball., photo by Shukran888 Wikimedia Commons.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 02/03/2026

Want to 🧪 improve research skills and boost your confidence? 🎓 get a taste of the Oxford experience? The Graduate School in @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social is offering research skills sessions for external postgraduate students in March-April (hybrid format). Apply (link below)! #Academicsky

These hybrid sessions are primarily aimed at doctoral students but all postgraduate researchers external to the University are welcome to attend.

All sessions can be attended either in Oxford or online.

Sessions for March/April 2026:
Academic Reading: Approach and Critique
Writing an Abstract
Improving Your Presentations
Writing Your Methodology
Research Interviews: Styles and Techniques

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 02/03/2026

Can slow lorises rescued from the pet trade be translocated and released? Not easily. Out of 9 tracked lorises in the study, only 2 survived beyond 6 months. Four were fatally attacked by other lorises. Released lorises showed signs of chronic stress. 🧪🦊 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Bengal slow loris, Nycticebus bengalensis, from Laos with 6-week-old baby. Photo: Helena Snyder, Wikimedia Commons

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 19/02/2026

Biggest spider web in the world: the area of a flat. Found in a sulphur-smelling cave in the Balkans, this ~100m² spongy web is maintained by two species of solitary 🕷️. The 110K inhabitants feed on midges, probably because they can't see the other spiders. 🧪 subtbiol.pensoft.net/article/1623...

The colonial spider web in Sulfur Cave, is home to a mixed colony of Tegenaria domestica and Prinerigone vagans. A. Side view; B. frontal view. The swarm of adult chironomids is visible near the cave stream. Photo A: Marek Audy.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 12/02/2026

Let's celebrate #DarwinDay by reminding ourselves that everyone has moments when they feel worse for wear. Darwin wrote to Charles Lyell in 1861: "But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything." www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-L... So, hang in there, #academicsky! 🧪🌏🐵

Handwritten note saying: "But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything."

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 11/02/2026

Probably the floofiest professional meeting you will see on here today. College fellow (r) and a llama at @kelloggoxford.bsky.social. That's a llot of lls. 🦙

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 11/02/2026

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science! #AcademicSky 🧪 Visual by Jan Bajtlik

A visual of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, saying "Men can do science too".

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 06/02/2026

How can planners and urban designers best promote biodiversity at the urban scale? FREE Online Lecture 📅 10.03.26 18:15 GMT How to best connect up urban nature? Join Oskar Kindvall, Francesca Froy, Thomas Hesselber and myself to find out. Sign up: lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/about/online... 🧪🌍🌿

Oskar Kindvall, Francesca Froy, Thomas Hesselberg, Joanna Bagniewska

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 29/01/2026

They are two different species. The American one is the Virginia opossum, Didelphis virginiana. Looks strange, but generally a nice guy. The Aussie one is the brushtail possum,Trichosurus vulpecula. Looks cute, but is lethal for NZ birds.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 29/01/2026

Oh there are plenty - they just usually go by *O*possum.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 26/01/2026

Uh oh, Reform UK also got hooked on the penguin visual... 🐧 I think it's time to remind the world about our Bird Biodiversity and Population Monitoring Methods course. 🪶 📆 Apply by Jan 28th 🌍 Study online 🧪 Course run by @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/bird...

Tweet from Laila Cunningham, mayoral candidate from Reform UK, where she walks with a penguin through icy mountains with London Bridge in the background.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 24/01/2026

Thanks to the White House about half the internet learnt that there are actually no penguins in Greenland. Yay #scicomm! BUT there *is* one 🐧living in the northern hemisphere: the Galapagos penguin, the only species found (just) north of the equator. No, the "penguin" on the WH tweet is not it. 🧪🪶

White House tweet with Trump walking with a penguin toward a Greenland flag

Galapagos penguin, photo by putneymark (Wikimedia commons)

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 23/01/2026

Today is the start of @rspb.bsky.social's #BigGardenBirdwatch. In 2025 the most common British birds were: 🟤 House Sparrow 🔵 Blue Tit ⚪ Wood Pigeon ⚫ Starling ⚫ Blackbird 🔴 Robin Take part in this years birdwatch to register what you see in your local area www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen... 🧪 🌍 🪶

Composite image: sparrow, blue tit, wood pigeon, starling, blackbird, robin.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 22/01/2026

FREE COURSE: Distance sampling: Theory and applications 🌍 Online 🧪 3-6 hours study during the week of 02 February 2026 🦊 Useful for ecologists and conservationists #AcademicSky verdantlearn.com/learn/distan...

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 21/01/2026

Sex matters: European urban birds flee approaching women sooner than approaching men. Pretty much what it says in the title... Study conducted across 5 European countries, with standardised pairing of ♂️and♀️ observers. Perhaps it's the smell? 🧪🌍🪶 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Blackbird with a peanut. Photo: Zeynel Cebeci, Wikimedia Commons

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 19/01/2026

❗ The news we all needed: cow uses a broom to scratch herself. Great report of tool use in cattle by @katewong.bsky.social. 🧪 🐄 www.scientificamerican.com/article/firs...

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 14/01/2026

Paid summer research internships in Oxford! Work with me on biodiversity in school grounds (or with someone else on another project). 🧪 #UNIQplus is open to UK undergraduates from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds. 📆 Applications due 18 Feb: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g... 🌍 #AcademicSky

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 13/01/2026

🐻💙🐻‍❄️ Polar bear ♂️+ grizzly ♀️= PIZZLY Grizzly ♂️+ polar bear ♀️= GROLAR Number of hybrid bears is likely to increase as climate change and ice decline push polar bears south, while grizzlies move north. These hybrids aren't sterile, but also lack the specific adaptations of their parents. 🧪🌍

Pizzly in Osnabruck Zoo, photo by Corradox (Wikimedia Commons)

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 17/12/2025

Great talk from @clairebranston.bsky.social at #BES2025, with a Glasgow urban gradient setup similar to that of @mszulkin.bsky.social in Warsaw. Earlier egg laying with greater oak availability. 🧪

Conference talk with a slide showing an urban gradient of nest boxes for blue tits.

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 15/12/2025

Come to our workshop at @britishecologicalsociety.org Annual Meeting #bes2025 tomorrow lunchtime. We will discuss fieldwork teaching for AI-proofing assessments and improving AI skills - bring your case studies! 🧪 #academicsky 🌍 @drnickworsfold.bsky.social

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 12/12/2025

Animal cafes - hot or not? Exotic animal cafes provide -limited space -poor animal interaction oversight and controls -inadequate feeding -restricted behavioral opportunities resulting in poor welfare. Even cat cafes have low welfare scores. Don't go there. 🧪🐈☕🐾 Research: doi.org/10.1292/jvms...

Owls in an exotic animal cafe. Photo Kainoki Kaede, Wikimedia Commons

Cat café "Cats Republic" in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Photo: catmuseum, Wikimedia Commons

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Joanna Bagniewska @joannabagniewska.com · 05/12/2025

Can fungi build better homes for cavity-nesting birds? We combine expertise in architecture (@unimelb.bsky.social) and ecology (@ox.ac.uk) to see if nests made out of mycelium (insulating, carbon-neutral and biodegradable fungi roots) attract birds. 🧪🪶🍄 www.birdsonthebrink.co.uk/blog/botb-gr...

Innovative artificial hollows made from mycelium (top-left), 3D printed wood (top-middle), and hempcrete (bottom/right) at test sites in south Australia. Image by Deep Design Lab.

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