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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

We also find that NPF and AstA retain their ancestral link to hunger, and hence link hunger and caregiving /5

Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Two hits: NPF (neuropeptide F) and AstA (allatostatin A). Peptide injections and RNAi knockdowns confirmed their causal effects. They modulate caregiving in opposite directions — NPF increases it, AstA decreases it. Both are ancient, well-known regulators of feeding /3

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Young ants spend most of their time nursing their brood, while old ants leave the nest to forage. We built a high-throughput assay to quantify nursing behavior and screened 61 of the 70 clonal raider ant neuropeptides /2

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

In 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

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I 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

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

We (@danielkronauer.bsky.social & Patrick Piekarski) outline a general framework to explain for this convergence. /7

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Remarkably, some of the same molecular factors additionally govern lifetime behavioral changes in social insect workers (as they transition from nursing to foraging) and mammals (during puberty). /6

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

In some lineages, parental care has evolved into a more co-operative endeavor, where individuals help to raise offspring that are not their own. These elaborations again relied on the repeated co-option of similar molecular pathways. /4

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

These molecular regulators typically form part of an ancient and highly conserved molecular network that pleiotropically controls feeding, growth and reproduction (three deeply interlinked processes). /3

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Across these independent origins parental behavior is repeatedly underpinned by the co-option of functionally analogous, and sometimes evolutionarily homologous, molecular regulators. /2

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Playing hide-and-seek with saltmarsh sparrows at Plumb beach: This East coast endemic inhabits coastal salt marshes and is endangered by habitat loss

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

These 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.

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

A 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

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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.

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Central 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

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

An American oystercatcher feeding its chick today at Rockaway beach, NY.

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

No kiss required to turn this pickerel frog into a prince. Catskills, NY.

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

One 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.

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Tomas Kay @tomaskay.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Pink-footed geese wintering in Norfolk, where they form flocks of thousands and feed on post-harvest sugar beet tops.

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