If you are @eseb2025.bsky.social and like cool bugs and convergent evolution, come listen to my story of why some stick insects evolved strikingly similar morphologies while others did not. Lots of pictures of truly stunning animals 🍃🥸

This Friday, 11:15am
S24, room 129+130
#ESEB2025

Our findings further show that the similarity of environmental conditions experienced by the organisms (temperature, precipitation, seasonality, predator diversity...) and the relatedness between the convergent lineages, both predict the strength of morphological convergence.

We show that stick insect lineages colonizing similar habitats in different corners of the world repeatedly evolved the same ecomorphs. Only the "wide leaf mimics" evolved only once in the well-named leaf insect group (Phyllidae).

🚨New paper out🚨 Very excited about this one as it showcases the evolution of the extraordinary morphological diversity of stick insects 🌿➡️ @pnas.org

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...