Reposted by Tomas KayLeah Houri-Zeevi @leahhouri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026🩸🩸🩸TODAY WE SHARE TWO MAJOR DISCOVERIES🩸🩸🩸 1. We peered into genomes and brains of the rare mosquitoes that QUIT feeding on blood and found what biting is built from 2. Humans got rid of isoleucine in their blood, malaria suffers from it, and mosquito proteomes budget for it THREADS> 58246
Reposted by Tomas KayVikram Chandra @vchandra.bsky.social · 09/09/2026I am excited to announce that I will start the Brain Origins Lab at the Crick in March 2027! Using acoels as a model system, the lab will study how animal brains evolve, and how innovations in brain organisation enable new computational abilities and the evolution of complex behaviour. 1111224
Reposted by Tomas KayJacopo Razzauti @jacoporazzauti.bsky.social · 13/09/2026FERAL is now agent-friendly! You can train and validate your model and analyze your animal behavior videos through your agent! Together with the introduction of FERAL lite in the previous release, we think this will make FERAL much easier to use! www.getferal.ai www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 031
Reposted by Tomas KayGermain Montazeaud @germtz.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Very happy to share that the @erc.europa.eu has selected PHYTOPOGON for funding! 😁🌱 In this project, we will test whether plants have greenbeard genes — an evolutionary mechanism that could allow them to recognize the genetic identity of their neighbours. 3229
Reposted by Tomas KayPhilipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · 03/09/2026We're about to start an exciting new project with generous support from the @erc.europa.eu In SIMBIO, we want to know how bacterial endosymbionts modify neurons on the genetic and functional level and how this shapes the evolution of their host's mating behavior. 8468
Reposted by Tomas KayPhilipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · 01/09/2026We are looking for a research assistant to join our team. brain.mpg.de/brand Apply using the link below if you are interested in doing research on the neural and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. jobs.brain.mpg.de/jobposting/6... 31430
Reposted by Tomas KayHugo Darras @hugodarras.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Our lab is recruiting 🐜🧬 : - PhD student, functional genomics, Chinese nationals only - Postdocs, population genomics, open internationally Lab info and contact: lab-darras.github.io Based at Zhejiang University 🇨🇳, one of the very best research universities in the world (tinyurl.com/4nb56pv6). 11914
Reposted by Tomas KayThe Rockefeller University @rockefeller.edu · 27/07/2026Congrats to Rockefeller's @tomaskay.bsky.social of @danielkronauer.bsky.social's lab, who has been named a 2026 Branco Weiss Fellow! Tomas investigates how cooperation and competition shape the evolution of animal societies, aiming to identify the traits that determine evolutionary success. 072
Reposted by Tomas KayThe Rockefeller University @rockefeller.edu · 21/07/2026In The Scientist: @danielkronauer.bsky.social's lab identifies two evolutionary ancient neuropeptides in the ant brain that modulate parental behavior in opposite directions: One increases the tendency to nurse and be close to larvae, while the other promotes foraging.the-scientist.comAncient Neuropeptides Shape Modern Ant Parental Care | The ScientistBy repurposing ancient feeding signals, clonal raider ants coordinate brood care and foraging, offering new insights into the evolution of social behavior. 051
Reposted by Tomas KayJacopo Razzauti @jacoporazzauti.bsky.social · 16/07/2026FERAL 1.0 is out! Just to remind you: FERAL is an open-source toolkit for supervised animal behaviour segmentation directly from videos with no pose estimation needed. We made it much easier to install and run FERAL First, to install FERAL: pip install feral www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵biorxiv.orgFERAL: A Supervised Video-Understanding System for Direct Video-to-Behavior MappingQuantifying animal behavior often requires segmenting continuous actions into discrete, interpretable states, yet most automated pipelines infer actions from keypoint dynamics and are limited by keypo... 12817
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 08/07/2026In an article published today, we show that ancient feeding-related neuropeptides have been repurposed to control brood care in clonal raider ants. Photo: Bart Zijlstra, UNIL /1 14114
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 24/06/2026I keep thinking back to this worm snake. Found under a rock in the back garden of an Air bnb during recent a fire ant collection trip to Athens, Georgia. They have extremely limited vision - check the rudimentary eyes - and a diet of 100% worm 010
Reposted by Tomas KayHugo Darras @hugodarras.bsky.social · 30/12/2025Apply for a PhD position in the Pan lab @miyapan.bsky.social at MPI Biology 🇩🇪 to study the molecular mechanisms and evolution of sex determination in haplodiploid insects 🐜🐝. 0118
Reposted by Tomas KayMiya Qiaowei Pan @miyapan.bsky.social · 01/12/2025Excited to share that I’m starting a research group at MPI for Biology Tübingen — and we’re recruiting PhD students! We are offering two fully funded PhD positions on sex determination and development in Hymenoptera 🐜🐝. Please share with prospective students who might be interested. 1119
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 20/11/2025Excited about the prospect of being able to automatically annotate ant behaviour without going via pose estimation, which struggles in the situations we care most about 000
Reposted by Tomas KayDaniel Kronauer @danielkronauer.bsky.social · 04/11/2025New article from the lab out today, in which we discuss how social behavior evolves at the molecular level. From parenting across the animal tree of life to caste systems in social insects, it’s all connected (and, therefore, slowly starts to make sense)… 02010
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025Parental care, and more complex cooperative systems of care, have independently evolved in hundreds of animal lineages. In an article published today, we explore how these behaviors evolve 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭l shorturl.at/g5OPw /1shorturl.atConvergent evolution of a conserved molecular network underlies parenting and sociality - Nature Reviews GeneticsKay et al. review evidence that parental care, and more complex social behaviour based on parental care, evolved in multiple species through the repeated co-option of members of a pleiotropic molecula... 12513
Reposted by Tomas KayLeah Houri-Zeevi @leahhouri.bsky.social · 28/10/2025What does mating look like when you only have a single shot at getting it right? Very excited to share our work on an almost-invisible female control, rapidly evolving mating recognition systems, and species that break the rules and take over the world. IN MOSQUITOES> 56628
Reposted by Tomas KayHugo Darras @hugodarras.bsky.social · 29/09/2025@AntCommunity 🐜 🐜 Chengyuan Liu found a Camponotus ant colony where all sexual larvae have red spots of various sizes, but worker larvae don’t. Any idea what this is?🤔 Video in the comment. 156
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 26/09/2025Playing hide-and-seek with saltmarsh sparrows at Plumb beach: This East coast endemic inhabits coastal salt marshes and is endangered by habitat loss 000
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 13/07/2025These two mourning geckos looked like they were mating outside my hotel room in Gamboa, Panama. They are both female. The mourning gecko is an all female species that engages in pseudo-copulation to stimulate egg laying. Not sure I’ve knowingly seen female-female mounting before. 010
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 12/07/2025A 𝘾𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙨 worker with a strepsipteran parasite in its abdomen. Male strepsipterans look like normal insects but females are neotenic, retaining larval form throughout their lives. Females implant themselves into the abdomens of other insects & expose their anterior tip /1 130
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 11/07/2025(1) A moulting Cicada. (2) Moulding is a vulnerable moment - a moulting cicada getting eaten alive by big-headed ants. And (3) aduldhood also dangerous! A cicada in the mouth of a broad-billed motmot. Over the past few days in Panama. 001
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 03/06/2025Central Park is full of active Robin's nests at the moment. This one is at eye-level on the North side of the Pool @birdcpk.bsky.social 030
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 25/05/2025An American oystercatcher feeding its chick today at Rockaway beach, NY. 010
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 19/05/2025No kiss required to turn this pickerel frog into a prince. Catskills, NY. 010
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 29/01/2025One of two wrentits rehydrating at a dripping pipe in Mission Trails, California. These are endemic to west coast scrubland, from Oregon south to Baja California, and are the only New World representative of the Parrotbills. They form lifelong pair bonds. 010
Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 12/12/2024Pink-footed geese wintering in Norfolk, where they form flocks of thousands and feed on post-harvest sugar beet tops. 021