Joël Meunier

“Scientists have discovered a giant new species of stick insect in Australia, which is over 15 inches long and researchers say may be the heaviest insect in the country.”

Via ABC News

Fascinating read on sibling cooperation during family life in burying beetles. Congrats to @steigerlab.bsky.social and Paul for this excellent piece of work

Dispersal and the evolution of sex differences in cooperation in cooperatively breeding birds and mammals Abstract. Sex differences in cooperation are widespread, but their evolution remains poorly understood. Here, we use comparative analyses of the cooperativ

Comparative study reports that sex differences in dispersal predict sex differences in cooperation across cooperative birds and mammals. Dispersal likely impacts sex-specific direct benefits or costs of cooperation:

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Fenner et al. @andyyoung.bsky.social

ECE 2026 - XIII European Congress of Entomology It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Tours, France, in the heart of the Loire Valley, from June 29 to July 3, 2026.

🪲 Join our Insect Parental Care symposium at #ECE2026Tours (29 Jun–2 Jul, France)! Explore parenting diversity, evo-eco roles & molecular bases. Let’s build a global community — maybe even a future conference! Info 👉 www.ece2026.org #Entomology #InsectBehaviour

Do you have expertise in Animal Behavior & in Editorial work? Open position below👇🏼

Spidery-legged assassin bug with mottled orange abdomen, dark legs, and a large fearsome proboscis resting on the underside of a leaf where an earwig is resting.

Spidery-legged assassin bug with mottled orange abdomen, dark legs, has reached around the leaf and stabbed the brown earwig with its proboscis.

Spidery-legged assassin bug with mottled orange abdomen, dark legs, and a large fearsome proboscis is climbing through down a leafy goldenrod stalk with the lifeless body of its ear wig prey dangling from its stout, orange proboscis.

Spidery-legged assassin bug with mottled orange abdomen, dark legs, climbing through down a leafy goldenrod stalk with the lifeless body of its ear wig prey dangling from its stout, orange proboscis.

I had the good fortune to stumble upon a wheel #bug nymph that was stalking an #earwig, with predictable results! #Predation #Reduviidae #Dermaptera

a black and white drawing of a hand holding a spoon on a white background ALT: a black and white drawing of a hand holding a spoon on a white background

Today brought both joy and disappointment. I’m deeply honoured to have been elected to the board of the Comité National de la Recherche Scientifique (CoNRS), in the new section 31! At the same time, I found out that my ANR project wasn’t funded. The academic rollercoaster never stops. 🫤

Exposure to a glyphosate-based herbicide does not alter maternal care and offspring quality in the European earwig - Ecotoxicology Sublethal exposure to pesticides can affect the reproduction and population dynamics of many non-target organisms, such as insects. Among these pesticides, glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) were long...

🚨 New paper out in Ecotoxicology!
Can a common weed killer harm helpful insects like earwigs?
We exposed them to glyphosate and found no major effects on maternal care, development, or immunity. Surprisingly resilient! @cnrsecologie.bsky.social

🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Quels sont les engagements de nos candidates et candidats SNCS-FSU et @snesupfsu.bsky.social 📋

Votez et faites voter pour les candidates et candidats SNCS-FSU et SNESUP-FSU aux élections des sections du Comité National du #CNRS 👇
sncs.fr/2025/05/20/l...

#ESR #VeilleESR #science

ECE 2026 - XIII European Congress of Entomology It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Tours, France, in the heart of the Loire Valley, from June 29 to July 3, 2026.

Save the date: We organise the next European Congress of Entomology from June 29 to July 3 2026 in Tours, France. More than 50 symposiums on almost all aspects of insects, including parental care !! @irbi-tours.bsky.social

📅 Registration opens 10 July 2025
🔗 Stay tuned at www.ece2026.org

enough is enough is written next to a toy robot ALT: enough is enough is written next to a toy robot

And ask do you need to spend research funds on APCs?. There are many other free ways of getting your work into the public domain. Even better don’t participate in this in anyway. And complain to your research director. Funders should not be tolerating this sort of publishing behaviour.

Today, a lot of earwig research was presented at the French-speaking section of the #IUSSI in Paris. Special rounds of applause to Laura Pasquier and Simon de Wever for their excellent presentations on their PhD projects.

A painting of an earwig

Léo Korst finished his master's project in my group this week. Much to my surprise, he gave me a wonderful painting of an earwig. He is clearly talented in both science and art! Thank you so much Léo!

New paper out: "Alternative reproductive strategies in two cryptic species of the European earwig complex" rdcu.be/eqfpM

F. dentata invests before egg-laying, F. auricularia after. Same egg number, different trade-offs -> hidden paths to reproductive success. @irbi-tours.bsky.social

My villain week continues. This earwig‘s name is Uriah. About eight years ago one of these bastards pinched me on my tongue. Remember, kids, always check your straws
#earwig #pincherbug #entomology #insect

Illustration of two people, one holding a large pencil, the other walking along a path of diverging arrows. Hedline is "Rules all PIs should follow."

#NextGenSci asked young scientists to write a rule that all principal investigators should be required to follow to improve the experience of young scientists in their lab.

Check out their answers on #NationalHigherEducationDay: scim.ag/45zsFEr

Changes to the 2026 and 2027 Work Programmes With the launch of the competitions for grants under ERC Work Programme 2026 in July of this year, several changes to the submission of applications and the evaluation of proposals will apply. The mai...

Planning to apply for #research #funding from the ERC?

From the next application rounds, expect changes to the:

• proposal structure
• evaluation process
• extra funding you can request
• eligibility for Starting & Consolidator #Grants (from 2027)

More 👇 europa.eu/!RPHWvv

#EarwigFunFact 25 — In some orchards, earwigs are pests; in others, they’re valued as natural allies. So scientists tried moving them between orchards … with mixed success so far! 🪳🌍🧪

More info 👉 www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/14...

Tool use aids prey-fishing in a specialist predator of stingless bees | PNAS Tool use is widely reported across a broad range of the animal kingdom, yet comprehensive empirical tests of its function and evolutionary drivers ...

Tool use in insects: Assassin bugs apply resin to their forelegs before a stingless bee hunt. This makes the bees attack the bug in just the right position to be caught!

Videos will worth watching

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Is it OK for AI to write science papers? Nature survey shows researchers are split Poll of 5,000 researchers finds contrasting views on when it’s acceptable to involve AI and what needs to be disclosed.

An interesting read, nicely illustrating how our community is split on the question of AI use to write or review papers.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

It was a real pleasure to talk about our recent data on the earwig microbiota at the REID meeting in Lyon, France.🐛🐜🐞🦠🔬🧪

Lots of interesting talks, many old friends, and a fantastic opportunity to meet a very promising generation of new scientists!

Memory and the scheduling of parental care in an insect population in the wild Field et al. show that, in the wild, digger wasps use integrated memories to schedule offspring care. As well as remembering the locations of up to 9 separate nests, they feed offspring in order of ag...

www.cell.com/current-biol...

🚨 Save the date! 🚨

Symposium on "INSECT PARENTAL CARE" at the next European Congress of Entomology #ECE2026 (29 June–2 July, Tours 🇫🇷) 🐞🪲🪰

Our goal? To lay the foundation for a recurring meeting on this fascinating topic.

Interested? Feel free to reach out—and stay tuned for more! 👀

Insectes Sociaux Insectes Sociaux is a journal dedicated to the biology and evolution of social insects and other Arthropods. The official journal of the International Union ...

Special Issue 🦋

A glimpse into a little-known world: Organisms associated with social arthropods

Deadline for submission: 31 March 2026

link.springer.com/journal/40/u...

#EarwigFunFact 24 — Earwig mothers have a reputation for being devoted, but they’re also selective: they invest more care in high-quality offspring than in weaker ones. Tough love in the insect world! 🧪 ❤️

More info 👉 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Earwigs have the coolest wings of any animal and you’ll never change my mind. I mean, just look at this gal!

📸 FUMIHIKO HIRAI

Dreaming of a postdoc adventure with earwigs? ✨ Dive into insect behavior, parental care, social immunity, population genomics, microbiota, ecotoxicology, and many other exciting topics! Got a crazy or just a vague idea for a postdoc project: Let's chat and make it happen! 🌟 #Postdoc #Europe #earwig

AI-generated image using the paper's title and abstract as input.

New paper: “The clonality window: relatedness and the group covariance effect in the evolution of division of labour”, with @kztwyman.bsky.social #OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

@journal-evo.bsky.social #Image: #ChatGPT #Evolution #OA

Social media postcard that says: Are you an early-career researcher within five years of your first appointment to a faculty position? You could be eligible for our new grants for junior faculty staff The Journal of Experimental Biology logo is in the bottom left corner. The Kickstart grant logo, two hands shaking, is in the bottom right corner.

If you're a new PI within 5 years of your first faculty position, here are two fantastic grants to help develop your research: the Kickstart Travel Grant and ECR Visiting Fellowships Find out more at biologists.com/grants/#jeb The next application deadline is 6 June

Please repost

Sociable arthropods: broadening conceptions about social insects - Insectes Sociaux Insectes Sociaux -

Thrilled to see our special issue of "Insectes Sociaux" out, showcasing the amazing diversity of social lives in insects (including earwigs, of course)! 🧪

Edited with J. Quezada-Euan and @richardsmiriam1.bsky.social

Check out the editorial here 👉 doi.org/10.1007/s000...