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Michaël Nicolaï

@michaelnicolai.bsky.social
563 followers 251 following 87 posts

Proud dad of three. Post-doc at the EON lab (UGent). Lover of color. Nothing makes sense in evolution except the biology of (f)light.

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Reposted by Michaël Nicolaï
Jolyon Troscianko @jtroscianko.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🦋 Butterfly wing patterns create motion illusions that protect them from predators! Our new study (8 years in the making) is out in Nature today doi.org/10.1038/s415... @grahancock.bsky.social @esbriolat.bsky.social @scienceanna.bsky.social @lauraakelley.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social
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Dr George RA Hancock 🦋🦎 @grahancock.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Full list of supplementary material videos here www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
Butterfly-Paper - YouTube
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I gave up and did not even try this year... made the right decision.
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Hugo Gante @hugogante.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The numbers are absolutely bonkers
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Jolyon Troscianko @jtroscianko.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
BehaveAI can now measure orientation. So now you can work out the behaviour of your animal in each frame as well as its direction - e.g. tells you which way animals are pointing or whether they're turning. Video guide: youtu.be/FgmtHoardWg Install: github.com/troscianko/B...
youtu.be
BehaveAI - orientation tracking - v1.4
YouTube video by Jolyon Troscianko
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Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture @burkemuseum.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
In the early 1980’s, we began preparing separate spread wings to help illustrate features of birds that had never been accurately drawn. Today our collection of spread wings is the largest in the world, preserving more than 40,000 specimens.
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Gerben Debruyn @gdebruyn.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
What makes this parrot look green? It's more than just a pigment! We found that the color comes from the interaction of pigments, nano- and even microstructures of the feather itself. @jessica-dobson.bsky.social @michaelnicolai.bsky.social @wybouw.bsky.social @lilianadalba.bsky.social.
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Jonathan Goldenberg @jgoldenbergevo.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
1/ Nature doesn't come with labels. Biological patterns are often continuous, overlapping, and difficult to categorize. That's why we built BioPatternNet: a pipeline that quantifies pattern variation from biological images without relying on predefined pattern categories dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
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Kinsey Brock @doc-brock.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
The Brock Lab is hiring a postdoc to help us study sensory ecology and sexual selection in urban reptiles! 🐍🦎🌆 Comes with a $5K travel stipend. App closes July 1! careers-sdsurf.icims.com/jobs/20539/p...
careers-sdsurf.icims.com
Prospective Employees | SDSU
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Jetlag brain is awesome. Upon arrival I was excited to have spotted a MEGA: the second Common Grackle for the Netherlands.. Except I was not in the Netherlands 🤦‍♂️
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I did it! Accidental aRt!
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Michael Bok @mikebok.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
I am hiring a PhD student to join our group in Lund, Sweden working on an ERC-funded project to untangle color and polarization vision in some amazing crustaceans – minute water fleas and pugnacious mantis shrimp! Please forward this to promising students. Apply here: lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
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Hugo Gante @hugogante.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
The state of natural history institutions across Europe reflects decades of neglect and lack of vision from administrators, present and past
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Jonathan Goldenberg @jgoldenbergevo.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
We often assume that reflectance is “spectrally well‑behaved.” If an animal is bright or dark in the (human) visible, surely the rest of the spectrum just… follows along? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Color and Near‐Infrared Reflectance Covary in Distinct Ways Across Taxa
Solar reflectance across ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths was analyzed in integuments and eggs of 322 species. We found consistent positive correlations between UV and visible refl....
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Caleb Scutt @calebscutt.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
New preprint🚨happy to share work from my first PhD chapter, evaluating the ways in which we can integrate ancestral state estimations into disparity workflows, completed alongside @tguillerme.bsky.social , Gavin Thomas & @nhcooper123.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧪
Heatmap figure showing how relative disparity error changes across different trait models, ancestral state estimation approaches and fossil sampling densities
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Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Roll up, roll up! Looking for a postdoc? Want somewhere that's academia adjacent? Interested in seabirds, plastics, and conservation? Come work with me and @adriftlab.bsky.social! If you want to help develop an application, get in touch! #ornithology #seabirds #PhDjobs #PostdocJobs
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Want to switch countries for a postdoc? Specifically, are you European, or are you non-European wanting to come to Europe? Now's the time to reach out to potential host labs! (It's very normal to cold-email a PI about potentially hosting -- don't be shy!)
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Natalie Cooper @nhcooper123.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us
nhcooper123.github.io
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Are you (or something you know) looking for a PhD? Like trait macroevolution but also yearn for an applied topic? Think plants are neat? Want to live in beautiful northeast Scotland?! 🌊🐬⛰️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I'm advertising a PhD in my lab! Deadline April 22, email me any questions. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
findaphd.com
QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen , listed on FindAPhD.com
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Awesome work by Jess! And an opportunity for me to see the Zaglossus attenboroughi holotype. bucketlist✅
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Jessica Dobson @jessica-dobson.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Back again with more cool mammal updates, this time in maybe the coolest mammal - the platypus! Thrilled to share the second chapter of my PhD, out today in Biology Letters. We found spherical hollow melanosomes in the fur of the platypus, maybe a total vertebrate first! doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
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Mafalda S Ferreira @mafaldaferreira.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Our work is part of @zoologysthlm.bsky.social and @scilifelab.se! ☺️
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Simon Baeckens @simonbaeckens.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
🦎 Funded 4-year PhD position on Lizard Evolutionary Ecology in our lab at UCLouvain (Belgium)! Apply before 9 March! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...
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Ferran Sayol @ferransayol.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
New paper out! 🐦📊 We realease AVONICHE, a global dataset with detailed information on the proportional use of 32 foraging niches, combining dietary categories with the behaviours and substrates used to access resources. Openly access the paper and data in GEB: doi.org/10.1111/geb....
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Bohao Fang @fangbohao.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Thrilled to share our new review online with @scottvedwards.bsky.social in @Trends Ecol & Evo! “pangenomics is rapidly transforming our ability to dissect the genetic basis of ecological and evolutionary change in natural systems.”
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Dr Mark E Hauber @thecowbirdlab.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
cell.com
Pangenomes: new tools for ecological and evolutionary genomics
Genomic structural variation is an important component of genetic variation in natural populations. By assembling and analyzing multiple high-quality genomes within a species or clade, pangenomes capt...
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Will Allen @wlallen.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Currently recruiting PhD students to follow up on this result - please come to have a chat if interested #ASABWinter2025
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Will Allen @wlallen.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
🚨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!
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Steve Portugal @sjportugal.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Our new paper is out today in Journal of the Royal Society Interface (link below). All about eggshell roughness: "Scratching beyond the surface: examining macroecological patterns in avian eggshell texture". Congrats first author Marie Attard, and thank you @leverhulme.ac.uk for the funding.
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Like big trait databases? Think biology should think about humans more? Fascinated by house plants? My fantastic colleagues and I are advertising a PhD project based at the University of Aberdeen on the ornamental plant trade. Come join us! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
findaphd.com
QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - QUARTILES DLA CASE: Trait-based drivers of the ornamental plant trade at University of Aberdeen , listed on FindAPhD.com
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Back from #BOUasm25. I can’t praise the organisation enough? An amazing line-up of speakers! I’ve come back feeling inspired! I can now also check "seeing Cook and Darwin specimens" from my bucket list thanks to the amazing team at Tring.
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Anyone looking for a Australia-based postdoc? Like animal behaviour / coding / birds? My fantastic collaborator, Iliana Medina, is advertising a position researching bird nests: unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/UoM_Ex...
unimelb.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com
Research Fellow in Behaviour and Ecology
Role type: Full Time; Fixed Term for 2 years Faculty: Faculty of Science Department/ School: School of Biosciences Salary: Level A: $87,266 - $118,416 (PhD Entry Level - $110,319) plus 17% super Colla...
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British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) @bou.org.uk · 18/11/2025
We’re kicking off session 1 with a keynote from Alex Bond, “From specimens to solutions: the evolving role and current challenges of natural history collections” 💭 Andreanna Welch joins us as Chair for this session. @thelabandfield.bsky.social  #BOUasm25 #ornithology #naturalhistory
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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Examples of some recent papers from graduate students in my group - a full list of recent papers and preprints can be found here (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=pTdxVdIAAAAJ) and profile of the group here: https://egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/membersThe annual Wytham Field Team Photo!Celebrating a successful field season with great food & good company - May 2025Front view of the Life & Mind Building, which opened in Oct 2025: The new home of Biology at Oxford
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ignacio quintero @ignacioq.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Excited to share our new paper where we find that the rise, decline and fall of clades is not explained by the usual suspects (diversity-dependence, ecological opportunities) but rather by species' insidious loss of macroevolutionary fitness: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3
nature.com
Loss of macroevolutionary species fitness explains the rise and fall of clades - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The interplay between speciation and extinction rates shapes clade diversity dynamics. Using a novel phylogenetic model that includes living and fossil lineages, the authors estimate speciation and ex...
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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Hechenleitner, E.M., Martinelli, A.G., Rocher, S. et al. A long-necked early dinosaur from a newly discovered Upper Triassic basin in the Andes. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
A long-necked early dinosaur from a newly discovered Upper Triassic basin in the Andes - Nature
Discovery of a nearly complete skeleton of Huayracursor jaguensis, a Carnian dinosaur from the Northern Precordillera Basin in northwestern Argentina provides evidence of increased body size and early...
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
I'm not comparing myself to Darwin "But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything."
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Will Allen @wlallen.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
📢🦋 Our paper ‘Global selection on insect antipredator coloration’ is out and featured on the cover of @science.org We ran a huge experiment to find out how ecological context favours camouflage and warning colouration as antipredator strategies. 1/6 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A white-fronted bee-eater (Merops bullockoides) decides whether to consume a warningly colored white-barred acraea butterfly (Telchinia encedon). Photo (c) Mike Rowe
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Every year again, this blows my mind. At the same a gentle reminder that one upon a time there were over a BILLION passenger pigeons alone. What we are seeing now is probably just a fraction of what we had before 😱
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aukwardjess90.bsky.social @aukwardjess90.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
In 2017, we discovered the whereabouts of the last known male #greatauk 👉 tinyurl.com/3nc8s74x Now we’ve confirmed where the last female resides… Spoiler: she’s at @cincymuseum.bsky.social! Read the full story here 👉 academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...
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Melanie Brien @melbrien.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...
Wood tiger moth on leaf. Photo: Juhani Maamela.
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Jessica Dobson @jessica-dobson.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Super happy to share the first chapter of my PhD, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface ✨🐀 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... Iridescence in mammals is not as rare as we thought, but it’s all created in the same way!
Rainbow-like colours in the fur of a tropical rat (Otomys tropicalis)
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Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Hey you. Wanna apply for a fellowship on collections? the AHRC Early career fellowships in cultural & heritage institutions are open! The Natural History Museum priorities are below. If you wanna talk birds, hit me up. Collectors, colonialism, Canada, Australia & more www.ukri.org/opportunity/...
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Mammal colours boring? Guess again (mostly a note to myself). Superstar Jess has been finding iridescence colours across mammals! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Multilayer thin-film produces recurrent evolution of iridescence in mammals | Journal of The Royal Society Interface
Iridescent coloration is a vibrant structural colour that is widespread in nature, but in mammals is thought to be limited. Although multiple rodent and Eulipotyphlan species have been anecdotally des...
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Will Allen @wlallen.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
New paper @biolinvasions.bsky.social led by Sarah-Sophie Weil. Can macroevolution inform contemporary invasion potential? We outline the assumptions of this approach, assess support, then test if dispersal ability can proxy for naturalisation success in several tetrapod groups. rdcu.be/eD9Tt
Schematic figure indicating scientific support for the assumptions underlying the relationship between diversification rate and current naturalisation potential.
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Cody Limber @codylimber.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
My feather cell type paper is finally out! doi.org/10.1111/ede.... We’ve packed a ton of stuff into this paper but I’ll go through some highlights in this thread!
doi.org
Genetic Characterization of the Cell Types in Developing Feathers, and the Evolution of Feather Complexity
We used single cell sequencing to investigate the cell types of developing chicken feathers. From these data, we are able to describe the transcriptional profile of feather cell types, look at their ....
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
My talk at #eseb2025 is over, but do come and find me if you want to talk (bird) colour!
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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Great thread, great paper
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Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
New bird tree who dis. www.cell.com/current-biol...
a figure from the linked paper, showing extremely high rates of species diversification in the higher latitudes, higher diversification in the passerines (and in the early history of the oscines), and a marked (but unevenly distributed) uptick in diversification towards the present day
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Science Magazine @science.org · 25/07/2025
New research in #ScienceAdvances shows that some songbirds have such bright-looking feathers by having a backdrop of black or white plumage underneath their bright feathers—an illusionary tactic of color also used by painters. Learn more in #ScienceAdviser: scim.ag/46ZaPeM
Aptly named scarlet-rumped tanagers get their impressive red backsides because their pigmented feathers have a layer of white beneath, which enhances the rouge hue by backscattering light.
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