iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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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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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Awesome work! Can't wait to cite this!

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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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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Unfortunately ill have to miss this. Missed the time zone =(

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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Any chance this could be followed online, because this sounds great!

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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

In my defense, the other birds around were starlings and house sparrow (as usual)

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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

Have fun interpreting this, reviewer 2 😂

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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Or is the AI images of "beautiful" birds that my mother in law sends me?

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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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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Is it though? 😅 (three time applicant, and the bureaucracy still scares me)

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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

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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

So what? Hollow melanosomes are special! Rare in birds but producing awesome colors (i.e. African starlings). In platypus.. they are brown. And round, unique, 'cause in birds they always are hollow tubes. So what does this mean? At this point scientific consensus is that platypus are just weird.

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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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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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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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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Very much interested! I use birds to esimate/reconstruct colours of dinosaur feathers.

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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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Michaël Nicolaï @michaelnicolai.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

One of the amazing/inspiring talks being yours!

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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...

Celebrating a successful field season with great food & good company - May 2025

Front 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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