Benito Wainwright

Ah thanks so much Stu!

YouTube video by Butterfly Conservation Hot topics with Benito Wainwright: The very latest in butterfly and moth research! (2022)

…and incase you don’t believe we’re actually friends, here are 80% of authors together, preaching all things Lep, in a fun video I made with @savebutterflies.bsky.social a few years ago. Nice to see our sentiment validated (and to see my jokes haven’t aged one bit…) youtu.be/AXDXL4CfMw8?...

What a joy to work with a bunch of my closest pals from my PhD on this review!

And lastly, thanks to @royalcom1851.bsky.social for funding and all BCI staff at STRI for their wonderful hospitality! 14/n

Functional synergy underlies effective leaf masquerade in the wild. Top: Photographs of Itarissa costaricensis (left) and Aegmia maculofolia (right), leaf-masquerading katydid species (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) found at the field site in Panama. Photos courtesy of Dr Hannah ter Hofstede and Dr Laurel Symes. Bottom: All experimental color × shape treatment combinations in situ, pinned to tree bark with a mealworm (Tenebrio molitor larvae) as bait. From left to right: “green oval,” “green elongated oval,” “green rectangle,” “brown oval,” “brown elongated oval,” “brown rectangle,” “blue oval,” “blue elongated rectangle,” “blue rectangle.”

#Evolution of complex adaptations can involve changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. @benitoexplains.bsky.social &co show that leaf masquerade in #katydids evolved via concurrent modification in wing colour & shape, driven by evolutionary synergy @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4oUE741

Nevertheless, I certainly would not have got very far without the incredible support of Nathan Bailey and Graeme Ruxton, who really helped bring this work to life. Also huge kudos to summer intern student Lotte Rolfe for doing most of the legwork on the predation experiment. 💪🏼13/n

This is my most independent piece of work to date so on a personal level, I’m pretty proud of it. The (synergistic? 😜) blend of methodologies involved is also a nice nod to how I began my research career as a master student, and the amazing mentors I learnt from. 12/n

So then, the co-occurrence of traits with synergistic effects provide a viable mechanism through which exquisitely sophisticated adaptations, such as leaf masquerade, can evolve! 11/n

But most excitingly of all, we found that (controlling for phylogeny) colour and shape are evolutionarily correlated with path analysis suggesting that these leafy traits were acquired simultaneously during the evolution of leaf masquerade in katydids. 10/n

In concordance with our predation experiment, we found that to score highly in the human leafiness rankings, wings needed to be the right colouration AND the right shape. 9/n

Having collected these wings, I designed a survey where 55 human participants had the honour of assigning them a ‘leafiness score’. Pictured on the left is our leafy winner (leafiness score: 9.05), and on the right is our wooden spoon prize (leafiness score: 1.88). Better luck next year mate 😢. 8/n

To answer this, I had to exchange fieldwork in bonnie Scotland for the lush rainforests of Barro Colorado Island, Panama… 🌴 My newfound hobby of katydidling yielded 250+ katydid wings across 58 species, with leafy features having evolved several times independently. 7/n

Given this interdependence, how did colour and shape coevolve to produce the spectacular masquerade we see in real katydids? 🧐🧐 6/n

Lo and behold, prey that were leafy in colour (green) and in shape (oval) were more likely to trick predators than all other colour*shape combinations. This tells us that leaf masquerade relies on a synergistic interaction of its trait components to be functional. 5/n

…And exposed them to wild bird predators in Bonnie Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿❤️4/n

It seems intuitive to suppose that to be a convincing leaf, one must be both leaf-coloured AND leaf-shaped. To test how leaf masquerade actually fools predators, we used advanced skills acquired from playschool to make fake “leafy prey” of different colours and shapes.… ✂️3/n

Complex composite adaptations are everywhere you look, yet explaining their existence from both a functional and evolutionary perspective is no simple task. The dazzling variety of leafy and non-leafy outfits of katydids provides a system in which to tackle these evolutionary questions… 2/n

Functional and evolutionary synergy of trait components can explain the existence of leaf masquerade in katydids The evolution of complex adaptations often involves synergistic changes in multiple traits that lack standalone function. This study shows that leaf masquerade in katydids evolved through concurrent m...

Leaf? 🍃 Or katydid? 🦗
Our new
@plosbiology.org paper sheds light on how these incredible mimics evolved their disguises, and what this reveals about how complex adaptations arise. We find that coordinated evolution between traits might be the answer… plos.io/4oUE741 1/n

@pinpilinpauxa-aaa.bsky.social on her @wellcometrust.bsky.social photography competition entry! 👏🏻

www.instagram.com/reel/DO-j2rM...

@bristolbiosci.bsky.social 🧪 #Heliconiini #evobio #neuroscience

This has got to be the #colsci paper to end all #colsci papers! Huge congratulations to @wlallen.bsky.social and Iliana Medina for this monumental effort. 🤯 Chefs kiss 🤌🏽

A pair of Ehiopian grass frogs (Ptychadena nana) on the cover of PNAS this week!

Happy to share that our paper on the #evolution and #genomics of the most common #color polymorphism in #frogs is now out in @pnas.org! My favorite frogs even made the cover of this week’s issue! 🎉🐸🎉

Read the paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Rapid Divergence of Visual Systems and Signaling Traits to Contrasting Light Regimes During Early Speciation of African Crater Lake Cichlid Fish Abstract. Sensory adaptation is widely hypothesized to drive ecological speciation, yet empirical evidence from natural populations undergoing early stage

Very proud of this extremely collaborative piece: academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...
Here, we show that divergence in visual systems - in response to differences in the light environment - leads to rapid divergence in sexually selected colour traits. Work brilliantly led by Madeleine Carruthers. 🐟👀🎨

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species

go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

Go Jessie, lots of cool stuff in here 👨‍🦳👵 (NB. these emojis symbolise the concept of ageing, not Jessie herself)

Race Isn’t Biological — So Why Do So Many Still Think It Is? « Life Sciences# « Cambridge Core Blog Even though findings from genetics and other sciences unequivocally refute biological conceptions of race, this erroneous viewpoint remains widespread among the general public. Why can’t scientists co...

Why does the idea that race is biological persist despite biology so clearly refuting it? Check out a blog @kevinlala.bsky.social and I wrote about our new article titled 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' (coauthored w/ @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marc Feldman) for some thoughts:

How about a splash of Scottish North Sea for good measure 🌊

Thanks to those who came and chatted all things katydid camouflage at my poster on Monday! For those watching on catch-up, come and find me at the poster session on Thursday 😀🦗🍃 #ESEB2025

Amaia Alcade Anton talk on expanded mushroom bodies in Heliconius butterflies @tibbe-evolneuro.bsky.social #ESEB2025 SYMPOSIUM 17.2

Elizabeth Hodge on Heliconius enhanced visual memory + expanded mushroom bodies @tibbe-evolneuro.bsky.social #ESEB2025 session 17

Winter ASAB 2025 - 15th-16th of December in Edinburgh - with a special theme of "How sensory information affects behaviour". Register at https://asabwinter.github.io/2025/ deadline for abstract submission 29th of August.

Winter ASAB @asab.org on *Sensory Ecology* register and submit your abstracts now (abstract deadline just a month away)!

I'm organising the conference this year with @lauraakelley.bsky.social and Innes Cuthill

Register & get more info here: asabwinter.github.io/2025/