Congrats to Jamie Smith @jamiesmithbio.bsky.social on a great #ento25 talk presenting his PhD work on the dramatic effects of even mild heatwaves during the larval stages (simulating the 2022 UK heatwave) on fertility in mason bees. Wish I could have been there in support!

Congrats to our PhD researcher Matthew Chambers, who by all accounts smashed his first ever conference talk - presenting our preliminary results on mason bee nesting and provisioning behaviour in nests held at different temperatures - which he is now modelling #ento25

The garden has been busy since we've been away!

Urocerus gigas (giant woodwasp) in the garden, about 50mm long. Scary looking but entirely harmless! She uses her ovipositor to drill into the wood of dying trees to lay eggs.

Happy lab 😍 - mason bee experiments proceeding apace; expect some website updates pretty soon 🔥

Beautiful tiger beetle up at Dalby forest last weekend! 🪲

Hummingbird hawk moth in our garden in Leeds a couple of weeks back ❤️

Do winkles exhibit antipredator behaviour in response to crab-scented water?

Assessing colour preferences in hermit crabs!

Comparing aggressiveness in crickets fed different nutrition!

Assessing gap-crossing behaviour in Peruvian stick insects!

Annual Happy Lab shot! The #invertzoohull class of 2025 begin their #studentled practical experiments - pick from crickets, hermit crabs, stick insects, locusts, or winkles. Students design and test their own hypotheses. @uniofhull.bsky.social

Excited to share our new preprint, in which we show that mimic hoverflies' flower colour preferences tend to follow those of their models. If the bees you are mimicking prefer visiting blue flowers, then so do you! Comments welcome www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(LH image credit: Peter O'Connor)

Alright, no need to rub it in.