iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

This may look shit, but it's by far the closest I've come to getting a #Glastonbury ticket since fucking 2010

Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Lovely walk along the coast of Mersea Island at dusk yesterday, even spotted a little owl! (Photo courtesy of @samuraipizzakat.bsky.social)

A silhouette of a bare tree with a little owl sitting on a branch.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

London heat is so much worse because of the humidity! DC, LA, London:

Washington DC humidity: 79%
Los Angeles humidity: 87%
London humidity: 32%

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Maybe not, I saw him near Chelmsford last year

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Persistence has paid off! Saw my first #Essex turtle dove at Fingringhoe Wick today! #birdsofbluesky

A turtle dove sitting on a branch in the sunshine

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

A yellowhammer at Fingringhoe Wick on Saturday and a sedge warbler at RSPB Minsmere on Sunday.

A yellowhammer sitting on a hawthorn bush

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Happy Davemas, one and all! My earliest DA memory is Lost Worlds Vanished Lives, which my dad recorded off the tele and I would watch repeatedly. Rediscovering it on DVD in my 20 was a major catalyst in encouraging me to go to university and study biology. #Attenborough100

David Attenborough in the Canadian Rockies, telling us about the wonderful Burgess Shale

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

I've had a very bird-heavy weekend around NE Essex, with some highlights being numerous nightingales, no fewer than 6 cuckoos, the first painted ladies of the year, and a red kite catching a fish osprey-style from the Colne estuary! #birdsofbluesky

A nightingale serenading, as they are known to do.

A painted lady butterfly sunning itself on some grass.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

An interesting thing I've noticed about some UK towns and villages is that they've replaced the traditional small metal 'Welcome to...' sign with a dirty great boulder with the place name carved into it. Not sure why...

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

In light of the sad news about Desmond Morris, here is my copy of JZ Young's The Life Of Mammals, bought a few years ago in a second hand bookshop down Charing Cross Road and once belonging to the man himself.

The spine of JZ Young's The Life Of Mammals

The inside cover of my copy of The Life Of Mammals, featuring Desmond Morris's 'ex libris' sticker

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Some exciting scenes in North Essex today - a raven mobbing a buzzard! I've never seen a raven in this part of the country before, and it looks like it's here to stay because it returned to its nest (and mate) in the top of a tall pine tree. #birdsofbluesky (photos @samuraipizzakat.bsky.social)

A close encounter between a buzzard and a raven in front of a fluffy nimbus cloud

A buzzard and a raven tangling in a deep blue sky

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

For most of my life I never imagined I'd see this sight in southern England 🦫

A tree felled by beavers lies in the water at a lake's edge

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

And as a bonus is a mesh of the skull of a female Eurasian woodcock (woodhen??), Scolopax rusticola, that sadly died after striking a window in central London in late 2023. Woodie, as she is now known, was scanned and has now been taxidermied and is on display at the @uclgrantmuseum.bsky.social

A beautifully taxidermied female Eurasian woodcock, Scolopax rusticola, in a glass museum display case.

Screenshot of a Morphosource specimen page showing a 3D digital mesh model of a woodcock skull

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

There are clearly very severe penalties for rule breaking round here!

An osprey sits atop a NO SWIMMING sign with a half-eaten fish that has clearly fallen foul of the no swimming rule.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

In the case of Meta AI's head of safety, it's the entire contents of her inbox. LOL

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Here's some Colchester trivia that I know you'll appreciate - it is the site of Britain's only known earthquake fatality!

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I found this fossil vertebra on the floor of a hotel spa in Egypt! #urbangeology

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

The egrets are off to bed! Another perfect evening on the #Egyptian Red Sea coast.

A flock of cattle egrets fly over a hotel swimming pool at dusk, off to roost for the night. Photo courtesy of @samuraipizzakat

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

It's a frigid day in #Colchester today, and the pair of #Peregrines on Jumbo are doing a much better job of enduring the cold than I managed! #birds #birdsofbluesky

A pair of peregrine falcons sit on rusted red railings against a dazzling blue winter sky

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Colchester, site of the UK's only recorded earthquake fatality

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

Had a productive day yesterday and I'm now the proud owner of a substantial amount of ragù Knappolitana!

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

We also found that traits seem to evolve differently within major clades. For example, brain shape and eye size appear to have different trait optima in palaeognaths and Australaves. 12/n

Optimum trait values for all traits for three major subsets of our dataset.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

To cut a long story short, we found strongest support for a variation of the Hand in Glove model, whereby changes in brain shape influences changes in braincase shape, which in turn influences the shape of the beak and jaw muscles, and the diameter of the orbit (eye socket). 10/n

Graphic summary of the interactions between traits in the best supported model. Brain shape influences neurocranium shape directly, which itself directly influences beak shape, jaw muscle shape, and eye size.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Next, we compared 12 hypotheses of trait interaction to try and figure out which trait, if any, was overwhelmingly driving evolution of the head. These hypotheses are based on several developmental hypotheses, along with integrated and modular models designed to capture a range of explanations. 9/n

Graphic summary of evolutionary models that we tested.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

First, we tested evolutionary correlation between different parts of the head (brain, braincase, beak, jaw muscles and eye size). We found that all we significantly correlated. 8/n

Results of two-block partial least squares (pairwise correlation analysis) of all traits from our paper. All traits are significantly correlated with each other.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

We used geometric morphometrics to capture shape of the skull, and of the endocast, the cavity that houses the brain. Luckily for us, endocast shape in birds matches brain shape very closely, letting us include a wide range of museum specimens in our dataset. 7/n

Mesh of the skull of a pied crow, Corvus albus, showing the landmarks we used to capture skull shape in our dataset.

Endocast of an anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) showing the landmarks we used to capture brain shape.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Thanks especially to Taylor West for segmenting most of these scans, a phenomenal effort! 6/n

Taylor West, our scanning technician for this project.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Our goal in this paper was to investigate correlations between skull, brain, jaw muscles and eye size, and to test hypotheses of how they influence each other. We started by assembling a massive CT scan dataset of 322 bird species, attempting to capture the breadth of modern bird diversity.

Phylogenetic tree of our study sample, showing silhouettes of the major families. Branches are coloured by clade.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

These other evolutionary changes include a toothless beak, enlarged eyes and reduced jaw muscles. Space is at a premium in bird heads, with brain, eyes and jaw muscles all tightly packed together, so it seems that the evolution of these traits should be tightly linked. 4/n

Diagram illustrating some of the differences in brain morphology and jaw muscles size between modern birds and their theropod dinosaur relatives. Images taken from Ksepka et al., 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.03.060), Gignac and Erickson, 2017 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02161-w) and Jones et al., 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1186/s40851-019-0129-z)

Transparent scan of the skull of the Senegal thick-knee, Burhinus senegalensis, showing the brain cavity in green.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Why is this important? Drastic changes in brain size and shape are one of the most obvious patterns we observe during the early evolution of birds. Are these changes in brain morphology responsible for the other distinctive evolutionary changes we see in the bird head?

Diagram illustrating changes in brain shape during the evolution of birds, adapted from: Daniel J. Field, M. Grace Burton, Juan Benito, Olivia Plateau, Guillermo Navalón; Whence the birds: 200 years of dinosaurs, avian antecedents. Biol Lett 1 January 2025; 21 (1): 20240500. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0500

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

We know that the brain forms very early in vertebrate embryos and plays a big role in shaping the formation of the surrounding tissues in the head, including the skull, eye and jaw muscles. What we don't really know is how this translates into evolutionary change across many species. 2/n

Figure showing comparable chondrocranial stages of six birds, taken from Hüppi, E., Werneburg, I. & Sánchez-Villagra, M.R. Evolution and development of the bird chondrocranium. Front Zool 18, 21 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12983-021-00406-z

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

...surface water and ambush predation in deep, dark water. This shows that even seemingly homogeneous habitats like the open ocean are actually complex environments that can lead to rapid adaptive radiations!

A school of bluefin tuna (Thunnus sp.) in the open ocean. Photo Credit: NOAA.

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

I'm on my way home now after a very tiring but very, very fun week of science and catching up with old and new friends. Thanks so much to @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the team for an unforgettable #SVP! #SVP2025

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Andrew Christopher Knapp @knapprew.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

It's #caturday so here's Emile, the star of my talk today at #svp2025.

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