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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

good hyuck, babe! @markpopham.bsky.social · Oct 2

it's my daughter's birthday and I ordered her a monster cake from Carvel and this is the picture on the website and this is the picture of it in real life. please note: this is not a complaint. if this had been the picture on the website i would have paid more

photograph of a round cake covered in chocolate crunchies with ice cream cone horns, eyes, a wide pink smile, little arms and a belly indicating a friendly little monster guy

photograph of the actual cake through a carvel box, the guy looks fuuuuucked upppppp. he looks surprised and disgusted

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Rory Coleman @rorycoleman.bsky.social · Sep 4

I am thrilled to announce that I just opened my lab at New York University in @nyucns.bsky.social and Biology! Our work will explore the richness of animal behavior, dissecting the genetic and circuit mechanisms that shape its evolution.

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · 14d

Yes! We are always looking for observations from zombie hunters. Do reach out!

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · 14d

Our podcast is out! Check out our research @urochester.bsky.social that is decoding how true biohackers called twisted-winged insects control social wasps! #teamwasp #strepsiptera #zombiewasps 🐝🧟‍♀️ Please check out this fantastic initiative by @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social. Thank you for having me!

Bugs Need Heroes Podcast @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social · 14d

This episode Amanda and Kelly discuss twisted-wing insects (Strepsiptera) with Dr Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy an assistant professor at the University of Rochester and a Levinson/Shapiro faculty scholar. @avispatica.bsky.social

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

RJ Millena @entomolrj.bsky.social · Jul 8

Our big review paper on strepsipteran systematics for Insect Systematics and Diversity is out! Hoping it's a helpful resource for anyone who needs it.

Strepsiptera systematics: past, present, and future

Abstract. The twisted-wing parasites (Strepsiptera Kirby) are among the most obscure and enigmatic orders in the Insecta. Strepsipterans are endoparasites

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Andrew Mountcastle @mounty.bsky.social · Apr 16

5/ Some wings have evolved strategies to help reduce damage resulting from collisions. For example, we learned a few years ago that wasp wings have a flexible joint that acts like a reversible crumple zone, allowing the wing tip to easily bend out of the way when it hits things...

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Thomas Lin Pedersen @thomasp85.com · 27d

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN.

It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.

Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

ggplot2 4.0.0

A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.

www.tidyverse.org

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Cientifico Latino, Inc. @cientificolatino.com · 29d

Applying to the NSF-GRFP (or another fellowship) on a tight deadline?

We built a 7-week guide + timeline to get you from draft to submission. It’s not too late — you’ve got this! ✨

🔗 cientificolatino.com/apply-in-7-weeks

#NSFGRFP #GradSchool #Fellowship

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Carmen da Silva @saltydasilva.bsky.social · 29d

Nesting behaviour drives the evolution of heat tolerance and climate vulnerability in bees! Check out our pre-print on 95 species of Australian native bee across the latitudinal extent of Australia! 🐝 #nativebee #climateadaptation #heattolerance #plasticity #behaviour #bees #climatechange

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · 29d

📣📣Interested in writing a proposal to explore coevolution and/or mechanisms underlying parasitic manipulation? Check out our team’s current projects and emerging host-parasite system. If these align with your interests , please check eligibility per NSF guidelines and email me! #GRFP #zombiewasps

Casey terHorst @ecoevolab.bsky.social · Sep 8

The GRFP lives!! (due end of October)
www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

www.nsf.gov

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

D. Allan Drummond @dadrummond.art · Sep 8

"Why is it called a hanging thief?" www.inaturalist.org/photos/10502...

A large fly hanging from a leaf by its two front legs, holding a tiger-striped prey fly in its middle/hind legs. iNaturalist Photo 10502457, (c) Mikael Behrens, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/10502457?size=large

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · Sep 7

🌟Looking for a PhD? 🌟 check out this exciting opportunity in integrative biology with an amazing PI! 👇🏽👇🏽

Chris Jernigan @chrisjernigan.bsky.social · Aug 25

I am recruiting PhD students to join my lab at Wake Forest University Fall 2026. Current projects focus on the neurobiology, behavior, and development of identity processing in paper wasps. Contact me if interested. Deadline to apply is Dec. 15th 2025. Please share!
#PhDposition #PhD #wasplove

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · Sep 1

Fellow entomologists! This team is interested in getting to know your research. Reach out to them!

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · Sep 1

Check out the fantastic podcast series run by @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social! In each episode, Amanda (artist) and Kelly (entomologist) discuss amazing insects, with researchers as guests. Amanda also designs an illustration based on each convo!
🐝🐜🦋🪰🦟🪲🕷️

Bugs Need Heroes Podcast @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social · Sep 1

This episode Amanda and Kelly discuss mud daubers. These wasps use mud to build their nests and fill those nests with paralyzed spiders, which is a very sexy behavior. Tangents include dinosaurs, the morals of relative television, Earthworm Jim, Amanda's crochet tips.
Bug discussion begins at 5:20

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

ꯇꯔꯨꯟ ꯌꯨꯝꯅꯥꯝ Tarunkishwor Yumnam @tarunyumnam.bsky.social · Jul 10

Our false head work is out! By analysing ~1000 #butterflies, we found many traits at posterior end of hindwings evolved correlatedly, likely forming a trait complex w/adaptive function to dupe predators into thinking these traits together are actual head!!

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Animal Behaviour Live @animalbehaviour.live · Aug 19

#ABL2025 Plenary Spotlight: Dr Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy ⭐

Join us on Nov 13-14 to learn how @avispatica.bsky.social Dr Mora-Kepfer Uy’s team uncovered captivating ways in which parasites reprogram the behaviour and lifespan of insects. 🐝🪱

Learn more about the conference: ablaoc25.sciencesconf.org

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

UCL Faculty of Life Sciences @ucllifesciences.bsky.social · Jul 29

Wasps on BBC Breakfast 🐝
Our expert joined BBC Breakfast to talk all things wasps - why they're essential, misunderstood, and worth celebrating.

Discover the Grant Museum’s fascinating new exhibition on wasp diversity.
🔗 www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-coll...

#UCL #GrantMuseum #BBCBreakfast #Wasps

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Sam England @samjakeengland.bsky.social · Jul 24

Why do treehoppers look so weird?! Our latest paper, out this week in @pnas.org, suggests a perhaps unexpected reason - static electricity ⚡ We show that treehoppers can detect the electrostatic cues of predators and that their crazy shapes may boost their electrosensitivity! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Electroreception in treehoppers: How extreme morphologies can increase electrical sensitivity | PNAS

The link between form and function of an organism’s morphology is usually apparent or intuitive. However, some clades of organisms show remarkable ...

doi.org

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Team Thomma @teamthomma.bsky.social · Jul 24

📣 Happy to see the journal publication 📄 of our work on Starships 🚀 in Verticillium fungi: terrific work led by @yukiyosato.bsky.social
rdcu.be/exBSp

Starship giant transposons dominate plastic genomic regions in a fungal plant pathogen and drive virulence evolution

Nature Communications - Giant transposons, known as ‘Starships’, mediate horizontal gene transfer between fungal genomes. Here, Sato et al. show that Starships occupy genome regions...

rdcu.be

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · Jul 24

Honored to be a plenary speaker for #ABL2025! #wasplove

Animal Behaviour Live @animalbehaviour.live · Jul 24

We’re excited to announce @avispatica.bsky.social (Univ. of Rochester) as a plenary speaker at #ABL2025! 🙌

Dr Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy’s talk will explore how parasites reprogram social wasps—revealing deep insights into plasticity, manipulation & coevolution. 🐝
#HostParasite #Parasitism #Coevolution

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · Jul 23

Not to mention that our people are paid very little to farm cacao

Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Scott P. Egan @scottpegan.bsky.social · Jul 21

Article on #NewSpecies of parasitoid wasp we discovered last year on #RiceUniversity campus! Great work led by @brendanoloughlin.bsky.social in collaboration with Mike Gates, Pedro Brandão, & me.

www.sciencing.com/1905663/texa...

Scientists In Texas Found A New Species Hiding Under Their Noses - Sciencing

Scientists at Rice University in Texas discovered a new parasitic wasp species, Chrysonotomyia susbelli, parasitizing the galls of local gall wasps.

www.sciencing.com

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Jeremy Sell @jeremysell.bsky.social · Jul 20

When darkness falls some wasps don't return to a nest to sleep, they simply latch onto some foliage for the night. Here a thread-waisted wasp (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae: Ammophila pictipennis) has settled in on a common ragweed (Asteraceae: Ambrosia artemisiifolia). Blissfield Michigan, 18 Sep 2010.

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Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy @avispatica.bsky.social · Jul 19

I’m back from a work trip and it’s my turn to do colony check-ins. I asked for which colonies to 👀 for potentially killing brood… and I get this protocol 🤣🤣 #teamwasp #ProudPI

Wasp colony with a picture of Alicent Hightower.

Wasp colony with a picture of King Geoffrey

Wasp colony with a picture of Ramsay Bolton

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Reposted by Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Derek Binns @arnoldtortoise.bsky.social · Jul 16

A beautiful female Mymar pulchellum parasitoid wasp of the Mymaridae found in Brede High Woods. This may be a common species but it is always worth a closer look!

#UKWildlife #wasps #Mymaridae #HighWeald

A tiny dark orange wasp with shaded fringed wings on long stalks, head and antennae are to the left of pictures

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