Impressions of the RIN conference: Big Ben, Challenges in Navigation Research, John O' Keefe, Poster session where Chiara Tenneriello and Yibo Ma presenwd their research, Royal Holloway University

✨️The RIN conference on Animal Navigation was great! My highlights:
🏅Neurobiology session including a talk by nobel laureate John O'Keefe and that @katejj.bsky.social advertised the navigation challenges book
🏅Introducing my team to the community, meeting old friends & new people
🏅London at night 🤩

Book cover

28 months later: In December 2024, I participated in the Ernst Strüngmann Forum on #Navigation #Research 🧭🧪 Now the book has been published including our chapter of group 2 ("team zoo" 🦠🐜🐦🦞🐒🦍🐢🤖) on the "Universal Principles of Navigation across Species and Spatial Scales" ↘️ doi.org/10.1007/978-... ↙️

Women of SFB1372

Spring crocus

✨️💜 Women's power 💜✨️
At today's @sfb1372.bsky.social meeting we had discussion on #diversity #equity and #inclusion and are solidary with #WomensStrikeDay #OhneUnsStehtAllesStill #WomenInSTEM 💜👩‍🔬🧪🙎‍♀️💜

🐜 Super interesting & important @pnas.org study by @mpi-ce.bsky.social research team @yukoulrich.bsky.social revealing how complex the consequences of pollutants can be 😱 I was asked for my opinion about the study for @trouw.nl. A friend living in Amsterdam just sent me a copy of the newspaper 📰🥰

Congratulations 🥳🥳🥳

Today we celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science by highlighting the incredible women of SFB 1372 advancing our understanding of birds, behaviour, and the natural world 🐦🔬
A small glimpse of the brilliant minds behind our research ⬇️
##WomenInScience

I am proud to present our recent #neuroethology paper on #magnetoreception in #ants today on the #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience where all authors are #WomenInSTEM @chiaratenne.bsky.social 🤩👩‍🔬🧪🧠🐜🧭
Thanks to @sfb1372.bsky.social for featuring our research in a video 🤩 doi.org/10.1007/s003...

Magnetoreception in Cataglyphis hellenica ants - Journal of Comparative Physiology A Magnetoreception is the ability of animals to detect and use the geomagnetic field (GMF) for spatial orientation. Cataglyphis ants are experimental models for insect navigation and magnetoreception. A...

New study shows that Cataglyphis hellenica 🐜 learns a nest direction by using a magnetic compass 🧲🧭. Demonstrating that a magnetic compass is widespread in Cataglyphis ants. @chiaratenne.bsky.social @cataglyphilosophy.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I am not aware of any convincing evidence for human magnetoreception and can also not report that I have a magentic sense - would be cool though 🙃

🤩 It is a milestone paper for us for many reasons:
🏅 1st paper for her PhD @chiaratenne.bsky.social 🎓🐜
🏅 My 1st only-PI paper😱
🏅 1st paper based on data collected only at the University of Oldenburg - Johanna Wegmann was @sfb1372.bsky.social short-term fellow 🫶
#WomeninSTEM 👩‍🔬👩‍🔬👩‍🔬
Funded by @dfg.de

Magnetoreception in Cataglyphis hellenica ants - Journal of Comparative Physiology A Magnetoreception is the ability of animals to detect and use the geomagnetic field (GMF) for spatial orientation. Cataglyphis ants are experimental models for insect navigation and magnetoreception. A...

🤩 Very proud to announce that today @chiaratenne.bsky.social first #ant paper has been published in #JCP-A @springernature.com 🥳🧪👩‍🔬
We show that also C. hellenica has a magnetic sense suggesting that magnetoreception is rather common than unique in #Cataglyphis ants 🧭🐜🇬🇷
↘️ doi.org/10.1007/s003... ↙️

I love that ants are chosen to visualize the conference topic #GrandChallenges 😍🐜 #AntsForFuture

To learn more details, watch our #SciCom video on this surprising finding!

Such a cool study with surprise result 🤯 The #bird #retina works under anoxic conditions 👀 🐦 Check out the paper with in @nature.com ⬇️ And watch the supercool video of @sfb1372.bsky.social 🎞

Chridtmas tree with toy ant

Have fANTastic holidays, everyone! 🎄💫🐜✨️

Three photos of ants: Left: meat ants. Middle: Banded sugar ant. Right: Myrmecia sp.. forager.

Speaking of ants: Of course, I made sure to spend some time observing the Australian ants 😍🐜
I proudly present my favourites:
🥉Meat ants diseccting prey 🐜🍽️
🥈A banded sugar #ant - such a beauty 🐜🤩
🥇#Myrmecia Bull ant, expert navigator using the landmark panorama 🐜🗺️

Three photos: team selfie in front of a wombat street sign. Echidna at the side of the street. Wallaby next to bush.

The Australian fauna is very exciting and I had the pleasure of meeting many animals😍🦘 Wallabys & kangaroos are frequent visitors. On 22nd of October was #WorldWombatDay and we celebrated it with a teamselfie🤳My highlight was the #Enchidna having breakfast at the side on the road - poor ants 😢🐜

Three moth pictures. Left: I with a hat full of emperor gum moths (photo taken by J. Granger. Middle: Bogong moth in catching cup. Right: Tethered Bogong moth ready to participate in experiment.

Back home & filled with great memories of my Australia field trip🌏🇦🇺 Thanks to Eric Warrant & team @lundvision.bsky.social for hosting me & the chance for becoming a temporary moth-researcher #KonishiAward @neuroethology.org to study #magnetoreception & #navigation in the spectacular #Bogong moth🧭✨🦋

That is so fascinating! 🤩🐜🐝🦋✨️

And I think, I have a found first christmas present for my kids 😍🎁🐦🧭🧪📖
Such a cool project by a @sfb1372.bsky.social team around @genmig.bsky.social from the @ifv-whv.bsky.social and with amazing illustrations by @co-la.bsky.social transferring research results in a children book 😱🥰 Check it out 👇

The history of escalation of the #honeybee #odometer controversy in the @neuroethology.org research community can now be tracked in this collection of @springernature.com #JCP-A 🧪🧠🐝 I highly recommend reading Eric Warrant's editorial @lundvision.bsky.social and the follow-up replies ⬇️

🤩 And here we go - thrilled to announce that two #AnHuNav postdoc positions are availble now ⬇️
Join us in exploring how humans navigated the ancient world - with the aid of animals!? 🧭🗺💫🐫🕊🐜🏛
1️⃣ Cognitive and textual #navigation uol.de/job785
2️⃣ #Archaeology of trade&pilgramage routes uol.de/job786en

🤩 Another new PI-milestone: Being at meetings with the whole team and several contributions from our lab. @chiaratenne.bsky.social, Yibo Ma and Dhanashree presented their research 🧪 on #InsectNavigation at the annual meetings of the @sfb1372.bsky.social and the #ForschungszentrumNeurosensorik 🐜🧠🧭

View in a desert environment

With a homepage, everything becomes more concrete 🥰 Check out our #AnHuNav project on Animal and Human Navigation in Antiquity 🧭🕊🐫🐜🏛
↘️ www.uol.de/anhunav ↙️
Stay tuned, we will soon advertise positions 🤗

Photo of the two new lab members

Team photo, from left to right: Dhanashree, Chiara, Pauline Fekea, Yibo.

🤗 Welcome to our two new lab members: Yibo Ma, @sfb1372.bsky.social short-term fellow, and Dhanashree Kishor Alshi, #Neuroscience 🧠🧪 master student, both curious about #neuroethology of #insect #navigation and #magnetoreception 🐜🧭 Looking forward to working together and their projects! 🤩

Exanple of a neurobiology talk: Max Farnworth's stsrt slide

Thanks also to the @dzg-neurobiology.bsky.social section, especially to the speaker team Suanne Neupert and @maxfarnworth.bsky.social, for doing a great job in taking care of the #neurobiology content at the #DZG 💖🧠💕

View out of the window at the conference venue: heavy rain

And my favorite non-insect facts are 😉👇
🥉 #Petrichor, the smell of rain, is mainly caused by one substance: geosmin @silkesachse.bsky.social 🌧👃
🥈 The trigenimal nerve of elephants is 2.1m long 😱🐘
🥇 Spiders have REMsleep & it is possible to track their eye movements 🕷💤 @roesslerdaniela.bsky.social

Start slide of Erik Frank's talk ln social wound care in ants

Slide of Tomer Czaczkes' talk on invasive ants thst evade toxic baits

My favourite facts (slight bias towards insects - sorry for that 🙃)
🥉 Bombardier beetles defend themselves with tiny explosions 🤯🪲
🥈 Gall wasps are seconday vegetarians
🥇 Ants are fANTastic 😇🐜 They employ therapeutic wound care @etf1989.bsky.social and evade toxic baits @tomerczaczkes.bsky.social

Logo of the DZG2025

The #DZG2025 is over and I am filled with great memories and zoological input 🥰

Thanks to the organisers @dzg2025berlin.bsky.social for this ✨️great✨️ conference! 👏👏👏 @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social @humboldtuni.bsky.social @mfnberlin.bsky.social
Below I share are my favourite facts that I learned ⬇️