Daniel Kronauer

In this new preprint, we provide the first characterization of the chemosensory system of an ant larva. The image shows the head of a clonal raider ant larva in which olfactory sensory neurons are stained with an antibody. Spearheaded by MD/PhD student Daniel Pastor. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The paired, leg-like appendages hanging out from this ant’s mouth don’t belong to some weird parasite. Instead, these are the maxillary (six segments) and labial (four) palps. Ant palps contain touch and taste sensors, and they are used to assess and manipulate food. Formica incerta. Woodstock, NY.

@vchandra.bsky.social is starting his lab at the Crick to work on the exciting question of how early brains evolved and how they work. Vikram is fantastic (I had the privilege to work with him for a while), and there’s good news: He’s hiring! Check out the ad below and consider applying.

The African driver ants are among the most charismatic and (in)famous social insects. Unfortunately, their taxonomy is a bit of a mess. In this new OA paper, we begin to rectify this, focusing on the West African species. Spearheaded by Caspar Schöning and Raphael Weniger. doi.org/10.3897/zook...

FERAL 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... 🧵

New paper from the lab on the molecular regulation of parenting in ants. Spearheaded by postdocs Alex Paul and @tomaskay.bsky.social

A new study from Rockefeller's @danielkronauer.bsky.social in @nature.com finds that parenting behavior in ants—who are highly attuned to their young—appears to have evolved in by repurposing ancient neural circuits rather than inventing entirely new brain systems. 🔗: https://bit.ly/4vUY6Uc

Our lab at Rockefeller University is looking for a Research Technician to help with our studies of ant social behavior and evolution. 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧬 🐜 Please share and apply here if interested: hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

Looks like killa bees saved the Knicks last night!

Some army ants are extremely polymorphic. This photo shows a large soldier and a small regular worker of Eciton hamatum. If you saw them separately, you wouldn’t even think they belong to the same species. You might also notice the light color of the ants - both are callows / newly eclosed.

Congratulations to Rockefeller’s #classof2026, here’s to your next adventure! 🍾 🔬 🎉 #PHDone

I visited Angeles National Forest with Joe Parker yesterday, and Joe found this giant water bug (Abedus indentatus). The females lay eggs on the males’ backs, and the males carry the eggs around until they hatch. Some serious paternal care.

These two male Maasai giraffes seemed to be involved in a playful dance. This behavior, called “necking”, in which the animals swing their necks at each other, is in fact a form of combat practice for young males. It helps the giraffes build neck strength and establishes dominance hierarchies.

A family group of elephants grazing in Kenya’s Maasai Mara during the early morning hours. Image taken from a hot air balloon.

A group of elephants during sunrise in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.

A herd of elands (Taurotragus oryx) at Mount Kenya, across from Old Moses Camp at 3300 meters elevation. Elands are among the very few mammals who venture up to this altitude, where extensive moorlands cover the slopes of the mountain.

Can recommend! 🐜 🐜 🐜

Excited to share my @currentbiology.bsky.social dispatch on the beautiful work from Tiphaine Bailly, @danielkronauer.bsky.social, @etf1989.bsky.social, and collaborators. They used the clonal raider ant to study how ants develop and maintain tolerance to non-nestmates. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Ants use specialized structures on their front legs, the tibial spurs, which act like fine combs and brushes, to clean their antennae. But how do they clean their front legs? Well, they pass them through their mouthparts every now and then for a thorough wipe down. Dinomyrmex gigas, Danum, Sabah.

A colony of Myrmecina (spinosa?) ants under a rock in Danum Valley, Sabah. Upon disturbance, the workers are picking up larvae and pupae, as well as the occasional male, to carry them to safety. Note how hairy the larvae are - they can literally stand on their hairs without touching the ground.

Rockefeller scientists, including @danielkronauer.bsky.social, Vanessa Ruta, Winrich Freiwald, Priya Rajasethupathy, and @erichjarvis.bsky.social, are learning what drives social behavior, and also trying to explain what happens when those roots falter. 🔗: https://bit.ly/47J2Q5h

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena have identified the first brood pheromone in ants—thereby proving that larvae actively influence the colony’s reproduction.... weiterlesen

The beautiful dewlap displays of anoles serve to defend territories and to attract mates. Here is a lady Dominican anole (Anolis oculatus) admiring her suitor’s efforts at Indian River 🇩🇲. Who wouldn’t melt away at the sight of that flashy wattle?!

Nasute soldiers (soldiers with a long schnoz from which they can spray defensive compounds) guarding a foraging trail of the termite Longipeditermes longipes at Sepilok, Sabah.

Dolichoderus affinis ants tending membracids for honeydew. Tambunan, Sabah.

A family of curious hyraxes at Mpala Research Centre in Kenya. While these guys superficially resemble marmots, they are actually more closely related to elephants, believe it or not.

A study from Rockefeller's @danielkronauer.bsky.social in @currentbiology.bsky.social finds that ants continually update their sense of nestmate identity and tolerance for outsiders, a discovery that opens the door to studying the neural circuits behind social recognition. 🔗:https://bit.ly/4sukQIR

Phigalia moths are harbingers of spring, ringing in a reawakening of insect life in New York each year. Needless to say that this scene in Woodstock last weekend lifted my spirits considerably. Btw, these are male moths - the Phigalia females have greatly reduced wings and cannot fly.

In the tropics, “pioneer” trees (fast-growing species you see e.g. along the road side) are often “myrmecophytes”, housing ants that defend the tree against herbivores. Here is a sliced Macaranga stem, revealing a founding association of Crematogaster queens with their offspring. Sepilok, Sabah.

With about 100 species, the spiny ants of the genus Polyrhachis form the most diverse group of ants on Borneo. Here are two beautiful examples, the golden P. bihamata (look at those fishing hooks!) and the especially armed P. armata. Danum Valley, Sabah.