Dr Hannah M. Rowland
@hannahmrowland.bsky.social
870 followers 560 following 55 posts
Curious how toxins drive the evolution of new traits 🐸🦖🐍🧪 In awe of nature’s cleverness and strangeness Enthusiastic champion of caterpillars 🐛 @mpi-ce @livuni-ives hannahrowland.co.uk
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hannahmrowland.bsky.social
Things that Darwin hated, a 🧵

To Charles Lyell, 1st Oct 1861

But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.— I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids & today I hate them worse than everything
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
womensartbluesky.bsky.social
Linocut by #printmaker Mariann Johansen-Ellis #WomensArt
Blue and white print featuring a stylised country walk with bending path, animals figures and features of the countryside  as well as text stating 'A walk along country lanes is happiness'
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
What an amazing group of 🐛

@anurag-asclepias.bsky.social has written about his encounters with Euchaetes egle: how the caterpillars handle latex, & even caused him a nasty rash from their pupal hairs. Such small & formidable natural chemists!

agrawal.eeb.cornell.edu/2018/11/24/c...
hleisthen.bsky.social
Cool! I have milkweed tussock moths (Euchaetes egle) here in my yard in Michigan, USA. As I understand it, they sequester glycosides from the milkweed and, as adults, produce calls that advertise their unpalatability to bats. Interesting clade!
Two caterpillars on a partially-eaten milkweed leaf. The caterpillars are orange, black, and white, with long tufts of protruding hairs.
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
🍄 FLY AGARIC (Amanita muscaria)

This fairy-tale fungus forms mycorrhizal partnerships with trees, trading nutrients for sugars underground. Its red & white cap signals potent compounds (ibotenic acid & muscimol) that can cause hallucinations and delirium.

Strictly for admiring, not nibbling!
FLY AGARIC (Amanita muscaria) FLY AGARIC (Amanita muscaria)
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
Calliteara pudibunda, the pale tussock moth caterpillar. Brilliant yellow tufts and an ultra-black stripe – a striking warning. When disturbed, it curls into a conker-like ball. Those hairs are likely irritating to the skin, a fine example of visual and chemical defence.
Calliteara pudibunda, the pale tussock moth caterpillar.
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
scraigroberts.bsky.social
We are advertising for a postdoc with skills in psychophysiological measurement for a project on smell and emotions. Closing date is 30th October. Please spread the word.
www.stir.ac.uk/about/work-a...
Vacancy details | About | University of Stirling
Job vacancy at the University of Stirling.
www.stir.ac.uk
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
In a world bursting with colour, why go monochrome? I joined Tim Caro & Martin How on the BBC World Service’s Crowdscience to explore why some animals stand out in stark contrast. From 🦓🐼🐧 it turns out the answers aren’t always so black & white 😉

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
CrowdScience - Why are some animals black and white? - BBC Sounds
Why are zebras so stripy? Why do penguins wear tuxedos?
www.bbc.co.uk
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
Charles Darwin, patron saint of off days.
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
drgdavidson.bsky.social
📢🚨Please share! We’re hiring! 📢🚨Have a strong interests in wildlife ecology and gut microbiome bioinformatics? 3 year Senior Research Associate for NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant. Apply here: vacancies.uea.ac.uk/vacancies/18.... Informal enquiries welcome! drgldavidson.github.io/ACMEresearch
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
birdlifeglobal.bsky.social
Today is #WorldCassowaryDay !🌏

The blue-faced Southern Cassowary is a large bird native to Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.🌳

By eating fallen fruit, they play a fundamental role in seed dispersal, helping to maintain rainforest diversity.

Read more👉 datazone.birdlife.org/species/fact...
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
rbgkew.bsky.social
We might finally have a way to save struggling bee colonies... with a yeast-powered superfood! 🐝💪

In a major breakthrough, scientists from Kew, University of Oxford, University of Greenwich & Technical University of Denmark engineered a supplement mimicking the nutrients bees get from pollen 👇
Close-up of honeybees feeding on a bright yellow, nutrient-rich supplement placed on hive frames. The engineered feed mimics essential pollen sterols.
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
sfb1528.bsky.social
Job Alert!

Come and join our team at our field site CRP Simenti in Senegal. Julia Fischer @julxf.bsky.social (@primatenzentrum.bsky.social) is recruiting a #Research_Manager. Work with the wonderful lovely Guinea baboons and manage our long-term data collection.

👉 www.dpz.eu/karriere/ste...
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
🌍🦋 Across 6 continents, 21 sites & 15,000 paper moths, we joined a worldwide experiment led by @wlallen.bsky.social & Iliana Medina, showing how ecological context shapes the evolution of animal colouration.

Proud to be part of this global team effort: doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
wlallen.bsky.social
📢🦋 Our paper ‘Global selection on insect antipredator coloration’ is out and featured on the cover of @science.org

We ran a huge experiment to find out how ecological context favours camouflage and warning colouration as antipredator strategies. 1/6

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A white-fronted bee-eater (Merops bullockoides) decides whether to consume a warningly colored white-barred acraea butterfly (Telchinia encedon). Photo (c) Mike Rowe
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
melbrien.bsky.social
Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...
Wood tiger moth on leaf. Photo: Juhani Maamela.
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
mpi-ce.bsky.social
A recipe from two eras for protection against bark beetles: Andrew O’Donnell et al. show in PNAS that some resin diterpenes are older than conifers themselves, while others developed independently—presumably to protect against bark beetles. www.ice.mpg.de/510162/PR_OD...
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
royalsociety.org
Born #OnThisDay in 1896 was Dorothy Needham FRS, an English biochemist whose research made her a leading authority on the biochemistry of the muscle. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1948. #WomenInSTEM
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
stuartwigby.bsky.social
New out in Molecular Ecology! In which we show that small males try harder when it comes to seminal fluid proteins. w/ @ju-morimoto.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @becks-seascience.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
pnas.org
In #pterosaurs, hollow bones appeared before flight. Rare fossil evidence reveals the precursors to air-sac-studded skeletons. In PNAS Journal Club: www.pnas.org/post/journal...
#FlyingReptiles #paleontology #Caiuajara #Brazil #dinosaurs
Pterosaurs, such as these Brazilian Caiuajara, had air sacs in their skeletons. Recent work suggests these traits evolved in their flightless predecessors at least 100 million years earlier. 
Image credit: JULIA D'OLIVEIRA / Science Source.
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
jarome.bsky.social
Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc.

In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking!

🧪 🪶 #colsci
Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’
Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage
www.science.org
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
norfolkponds.bsky.social
Hello @bsky.app. we are Norfolk Ponds Project - a science-led partnership NGO focused on pond restoration & #ghostpond ressurection. We aim to educate, lobby & inspire others on ponds. We used to Tweet & had 5000+ followers. ***Please follow & help us achieve the same here***!!!
Reposted by Dr Hannah M. Rowland
lauraakelley.bsky.social
Deadline for submitting an abstract to give a talk or poster is this Friday!
asab-meetings.bsky.social
ICYMI : #ASABWinter2025 will take place from December 15-16, once again in lovely Edinburgh!

Registration is now open 🎉 Abstract submission deadline for posters and talks is August 29 🏃‍♀️🏃🏃‍♂️

More information here: asabwinter.github.io/2025/
Winter ASAB 2025 December 15-16 Edinburgh How sensory information affects behaviour.
hannahmrowland.bsky.social
This magnificent ancient oak @kneppwildlandfdn.bsky.social is one of many around the U.K. that are heavy with acorns — a reminder of how oak trees quietly sustain whole worlds beneath their branches. Hundreds of species depend on them: birds, mammals, fungi, lichens, and countless insects.