Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
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mherberstein.bsky.social
Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
@mherberstein.bsky.social
740 followers 360 following 7 posts
I am a behavioural ecologist working with spiders. I recently moved from Macquarie University (Sydney) to the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change in Hamburg.
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Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
vanspidergirl.bsky.social
✨ It’s published! ✨

🕷️ Social spiders have bigger brains… but only in the right places! Our new study shows that in social huntsman spiders, regions for memory & vision processing are proportionally larger, supporting group living.

Read more: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Volumetric Comparison of Overall Brain and Neuropil Size Between Social and Non‐social Spiders: Exploring the Social Brain Hypothesis
Brain size may be influenced by the cognitive demands of sociality (social brain hypothesis). We used microCT to compare CNS and brain volumes in social versus solitary huntsman and crab spiders. Soc...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
August 28, 2025 at 6:11 AM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
Complex signals, complex defences: there’s more to defences than meets the eye. New from @amatageorgeii.bsky.social &
@liisahamalainen.bsky.social @kateumbers.bsky.social @mherberstein.bsky.social @jmappes.bsky.social @mpic.de

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

#aposematism #chemecol
April 23, 2025 at 8:07 AM
mherberstein.bsky.social
Check out what these toxic moths are up to!
Shout out to ‪@amatageorgeii.bsky.social‬
April 25, 2025 at 7:17 AM
mherberstein.bsky.social
Ever wondered whether prey always outcompete predators (aka life-dinner principle?). Turns out when prey are numerous, predators edge ahead in the evolutionary arms race - download paper here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
Asymmetric arms races between predators and prey: a tug of war between the life–dinner principle and the rare-enemy principle | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Antagonistic co-evolution can be asymmetric, where one species lags behind another. Asymmetry in a predator–prey context is expressed by the ‘life–dinner principle’, a classic informal model predictin...
royalsocietypublishing.org
February 20, 2025 at 3:07 AM
mherberstein.bsky.social
Sperm transfer in spiders is complex and sometimes dangerous. Our latest paper is trying to figure out what behavioural and morphological traits affect sperm transfer
doi.org/10.1111/1749...
doi.org
February 17, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
lib-morpholab.bsky.social
Playing with propagation-based phase contrast in #microCT scans to visualize soft tissue without contrast staining in jumping #spiders 🕷️🕷️🕷️ Sure no great image quality achieved, but good enough to measure internal structures of the eyes with @jadethurlow.bsky.social & @mherberstein.bsky.social
February 10, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
leibnizlib.bsky.social
#NewPaper 🐍 Our scientists have described two new species of African house snakes that occur in East and Northeast #Africa. It all started with an 20 year old specimen and resulted in a recent study in #Zootaxa.

Read more: www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-...
Original study: doi.org/10.11646/zoo...
4-foot-long predator, kept in captivity for over a decade, discovered as new species
A photo shows the olive-colored creature from Ethiopia.
www.miamiherald.com
January 16, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
leibnizlib.bsky.social
🚨Watch out postdocs and early career researchers: the #BORA_network invites you to the Postdoc Day 03 April 2025: Orientation, #Networking, #Career Opportunities 🌍🎓 . Explore the international science scape of #Bonn.
👉 www.uni-bonn.de/de/forschung...
#PostdocDay2025 @leibnizlib.bsky.social
January 17, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
hill-ecolab.bsky.social
Crabs smell with their legs too!
samillingworth.com Prof Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com · Jan 13
🕷️ Spiders Can Smell with Their Legs

Male orb-weaver spiders detect female pheromones using tiny pores (sensilla) on their legs.

This unique 'leg-nose' evolved to help them find mates - expanding our understanding of spider senses.

🔗 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

#SciComm #Spiders 🧪
Olfaction with legs—Spiders use wall-pore sensilla for pheromone detection | PNAS
The sense of smell is a central sensory modality of most terrestrial species. However, our knowledge of olfaction is based on vertebrates and insec...
www.pnas.org
January 13, 2025 at 6:00 PM
mherberstein.bsky.social
New species of Sydney Funnelweb discovered!

bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
The world’s most venomous spider is a species complex: systematics of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atracidae: Atrax robustus) - BMC Ecology and Evolution
The Sydney funnel-web spider Atrax robustus O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877 is an iconic Australian species and considered among the most dangerously venomous spiders for humans. Originally described in 18...
bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com
January 13, 2025 at 6:16 PM
mherberstein.bsky.social
We are hiring a new entomological curator in Hamburg at the Leibniz institute for the analysis of biodiversity change…
Please share and apply!!!

8101202752.karriereportal.cloud/job/2024-20-...
Karriereportal
Karriereportal für Bewerbungen
8101202752.karriereportal.cloud
December 20, 2024 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
kzutaustin.bsky.social
Friends, plz repost and share! We are hiring a lab technician with exp in mol biology and general lab management. BS or MS degree and good org skills are required. Deadline Feb 1, 2025. We are a welcoming and equitable lab community. Details at link below. 🐸🐢🐍🦎

zamudiolab.org/2024/12/18/k...
KZLab is Seeking a Lab Technician!
The Zamudio Lab (zamudiolab.org) in the Department of Integrative Biology at UT Austin seeks a highly motivated and detail-oriented laboratory technician to play a key role in supporting the resear…
zamudiolab.org
December 18, 2024 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
travismcenery.bsky.social
It took me way too long to do this one, but it's finally finished. If you're the kind of person who wants to watch a 40-minute video about Argiope aurantia, then I got you.

youtu.be/RJBIcgYZMdM
The Yellow Garden Spider - The Spiders in Your Yard
YouTube video by Travis McEnery
youtu.be
December 20, 2024 at 5:12 AM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
masonyoungblood.bsky.social
Lovely blog post about our recent paper in Ornithology (@amornith.bsky.social)! We applied agent-based models and machine learning to 36 yrs of mourning warbler song, and found evidence that males have a learning bias for more complex syllables: americanornithology.org/cultural-evo...
Cultural evolution in song of Geothlypis philadelphia (Mourning Warbler) - American Ornithological Society
We used a long-term database of songs recorded over 36 years from throughout the breeding range of Geothlypis philadelphia (Mourning Warbler) to answer questions about the current and historical patte...
americanornithology.org
December 19, 2024 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
abhadra7.bsky.social
Call for workshops is open: behaviourindia2025.in/Call-for-Wor... If you would like to propose a workshop at #Behaviour2025, check this! @asabeducation.bsky.social @animalopps.bsky.social @animalbehaviour.live @ethology.bsky.social @nationalgeographic.bsky.social @natureportfolio.bsky.social
International Ethological Congress on Behaviour 2025
International Ethological Congress on Behaviour 2025, Kolkata, India
behaviourindia2025.in
December 19, 2024 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
bbmwong.bsky.social
Celebrating the move to Bluesky? Well, not really. Grant writing day with @mattdhall.bsky.social in the city. Treating ourselves to a nice lunch as reward.
November 25, 2024 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Mariella Herberstein (she/her) 🌈
austevolsoc.bsky.social
There’s just over one week till #AustEvol2024!! Registration closes December 1st so there’s plenty of time to signup if you haven’t done so already!

We can’t wait to see you in Perth ☀️
November 25, 2024 at 10:51 PM
mherberstein.bsky.social
Help us understand how conspicuous butterflies are by playing this game!

mferickson.github.io/findbutterfly/
Find The Butterfly
mferickson.github.io
November 28, 2024 at 6:55 AM
mherberstein.bsky.social
I am delighted that this, my very first post here on Bluesky, is to celebrate a paper on brains size in ant-mimicking spiders!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Small Brains: Body Shape Constrains Tissue Allocation to the Central Nervous System in Ant‐Mimicking Spiders
Imperfect mimicry may be due to trade-offs between accuracy and vital biological function. Using microCT to compare the CNS of ant-mimicking jumping spiders (A), with a non-mimic (B), we found that m...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 18, 2024 at 9:58 AM