Chelsea Cook

The @burkemuseum.bsky.social is offering funds to support graduate and postdoctoral research visits to the collections, including our University of Washington Herbarium! Please help us get the word out! More information is available here: www.burkemuseum.org/collections-...

Hello all NSF GRFP Letter Writers - just a reminder they are due TODAY!!! #academia #academicsky #professors

Raaadula

Northern Saw-whet owl feathers contain porphyrins, which fluoresce under UV but break down over time. Older feathers thus glow less intensely than newly-molted feathers. Here you can see three generations of feathers, making this an after second year bird. 🧠

Oh, you're tired after taking care of your one kid for the entire day?

Anti-Prime Day starts…NOW! 🥳 Today through midnight on 10/7, enjoy free shipping site-wide, all while supporting local, independent bookstores.

Meet Backpack, your 2026 Fat Bear Week champion. Backpack is 20 years old, weighs about 1,000 pounds and got his nickname because, as a cub, he loved riding on his mom's back across the Brooks River.

New review article! 📚 Majoe & @phdbee.bsky.social argue that wing-fanning is a plastic behaviour that can serve as a model system to understand how insect societies respond to their environment 🌬️ 🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s000... #SocialInsects #Plasticity #Thermoregulation #ColonialBehaviour #Biology

A parasitic Apocephalus ant-decapitating fly closes in on her target, a Camponotus chromaiodes carpenter ant. Sand Ridge State Forest, Illinois.

Check out our labs newest review paper!! Join the #fandom.

I have photographed the infamous German yellowjacket before, as it is widely invasive around the world. But I'd never photographed one in Germany until this summer. This rather cooperative colony didn't mind my hanging around to shoot the workers cleaning excavated soil from the nest. Freiburg.

Jumping spiders of the world! 🕷️🌎

Army ants (Eciton mexicanum) are specialist predators of other ants. Here, a group of workers take down a Neoponera huntress ant in an Ecuadorian cloud forest.

An army ant worker plugs a hole in the trail using her own body, allowing her sisters to run more efficiciently on their way to the raiding front. Amazonian Ecuador.

Given all the *flails hands* you all deserve one of the most adorable pictures I took of Baby Bird Season 2026. A snowy ploverlet peeking through a little sand shrub. Perhaps a once in a lifetime shot. 🪶 🐣

Leafcutter bee interventions on fireweed leaves. #cochranealberta

There's a group of braconid wasps, the Alysiinae, that attack maggots, develop inside the hardened puparia, and have to force their way out. So their mandibles open away from the head to push rather than crush, the teeth appearing to face the wrong direction.

We currently have TWO collections-based vacancies at National Museums Scotland! As part of the upcoming DiSSCo UK program, we’re seeking a Digitiser and Senior digitiser to work with our insect collection: careers.nms.ac.uk/vacancies (Apply by 31st August) #Digitisation #Insects #MuseumJobs

As one of the world's most active specialist photographers of ants, I have embarassingly few photographs of European species in my galleries- basically none- even as I frequently get requests for them. European ants are perhaps the most studied of any fauna in the world. So, finally...

Had a bit of luck with the Giant Oak Aphid (Stomaphis quercus) - this time a young one with an attendant ant (Lasius fuliginosus). They live very deep in bark fissures where they feed on phloem. The mouthparts are so long that, when not in use, they are held pointing backwards under the body.

The Desert Botanical Garden is hiring!! 🌵🌻🏜️ We are looking for a new Chief Research Officer - somebody to lead our fantastic research dept. which encompasses work on plant conservation, climate adaptation, biodiversity, and more! Please share the link below with anybody that may be interested!

Wherever we look, insect numbers are declining... but most insect life on Earth is found in locations we aren't actively monitoring. @justinmcrocker.bsky.social discusses the #insect decline and how can we build the planetary observatory that #biodiversity requires @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4qzS2yv

Honestly this #IUSSI26 has some of the best student presentations I’ve seen. Really impressive research and science communication!

#IUSSI26 is almost over. Kind of sad..

I just gave a talk on how different errors may affect collective foraging outcomes and how communication mitigates the effect of these errors. In case we did not get a chance to chat after the talk, I'm at the conference. So do say hi! Also, check out the pre-print of this work! #IUSSI26

[JOB!] I'm hiring for a really exciting postdoc position. A combination of breeding experiments, conservation genomics, and student mentorship. Room/board at the @amnh.org Southwestern Research Station each summer, 40 months of support, new science building at BSU. Share broadly! ad: bit.ly/4hKaUIL

Three positions advertising in friendly lab on butterfly rearing & experiment support, image-based identification platform development, developing transgenic insects. PDRA/PDRF (2x): careers.exeter.ac.uk/vacancies/13... careers.exeter.ac.uk/vacancies/13... GRA: careers.exeter.ac.uk/vacancies/13...

This was a really nice talk!!

🚨HIRING NEWS🚨 Come be my colleague! The Dept of Chemistry & Biochemistry at UC Merced is hiring for two positions in Biochemistry! One is at the assistant professor level and the other is open rank... if you have questions, let me know! Link: aprecruit.ucmerced.edu/JPF02218

Tenure Track job alert! We're hiring someone to teach Microbiology and Genetics! Know someone on the job market? Must have a PhD. Position is mostly teaching (65%) but research expected. Send them my way! Will have official ad details soon 🧪🦠🧬

Anna Dornhaus making the case that *evolution shapes variation*, even among individuals within a colony at the same time. Absolutely stunning examples of diligent tracking of variation in ant walking speeds vs. activity, corpulence, and even antenna sensilla density! @dornhaus.bsky.social #IUSSI26

@nstroeymeyt.bsky.social is hiring! Collective behavior, disease, and social organization - if you’re looking for a PhD or postdoc! #IUSSI26

This morning! Come by!!

Man I am so disappointed - I apparently missed that even if you reserved a shirt they were selling them broadly - so no shirt for me 😭 it’s such a good shirt! #IUSSI26 @uissi-social.bsky.social

Putting up my lab’s poster for this afternoon at #IUSSI26!

Work with Liz! She’s the best!

So great to finally a talk by @yukoulrich.bsky.social - #IUSSI26 is the best place to see comprehensive journies of science you’ve been reading forever!

In Freiburg and for #IUSSI26 participants, there is a service to help folks get home safe at night. Haven’t tried it yet, but sharing a link in case anyone needs. Feel free to find an ally with a pink heart on badge if you need anything else! www-vag--freiburg-de.translate.goog/fahrplan/nac...

Scientists are incredibly resilient - when Matthieu Lihoreau’s honey bee colonies were attacked by giant hornets, he turned the hornets into biosensors of radioactivity contamination in Japan. #IUSSI26

“Females contain multitudes, even into adulthood.” RJ Milena (Rochester) speaking at #IUSSI26, sharing longterm vs short-term Polistes host neurotranscriptomics; their hitchhiking Xenos riding the endocrine wave to differentiation & development. @entomolrj.bsky.social @avispatica.bsky.social

Many folks interested in ants recently credit AntsCanada and YouTube as inspiration… but decades ago for me and so many others it was Alex Wild and his website cataloging gorgeous insect ecology & behavior through macrophotography. Roberto Keller thanked @alexwild.bsky.social and I do too! #iussi26

Cool findings @dgkontopoulos.io showing the interaction of temp and humidity on ant physiology and behavior #IUSSI26

Wow - what an excellent talk by @victoriamallinson.bsky.social showing that cold snaps dramatically impact bumblebee colonies for several weeks! Impressive design and images to explain a sophisticated experiment! #IUSSI26

Everyone at #iussi26 who wants to learn about honey wasps (yes! They are real!) should attend @joholley.bsky.social ‘s talk at 4:15 this afternoon in hall 4.

#iussi2026 @joanstrassmann.bsky.social “if what you love changes, go with it” “there’s nothing worse than stopping enjoying what you do”

I am excited to announce a job for an Asst Prof in Plant Evolution in the dept. of Evolution and Ecology at @ucdavis.bsky.social. We're looking broadly, from macro (speciation, comparative genomics, evo-devo) to micro (pop biology, adaptive evolution, evo-eco). recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07777

Thrilled to see @joanstrassmann.bsky.social give a plenary at #IUSSI26!

if you are at #iussi26 come to my talk on Thursday at 15:00 in K9 and hear about how the brains of wasps who have never seen another wasp respond to wasp images

🚨 4 new positions for postdoctoral research available at our @zukunftskolleg.bsky.social in beautiful Konstanz! If you are interested in exploring collective behaviour at the interface of theory and experiment, then consider applying! ⚠️ Deadline October 12 stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/4...