We (@danielkronauer.bsky.social & Patrick Piekarski) outline a general framework to explain for this convergence. /7

Remarkably, some of the same molecular factors additionally govern lifetime behavioral changes in social insect workers (as they transition from nursing to foraging) and mammals (during puberty). /6

In some lineages, parental care has evolved into a more co-operative endeavor, where individuals help to raise offspring that are not their own. These elaborations again relied on the repeated co-option of similar molecular pathways. /4

These molecular regulators typically form part of an ancient and highly conserved molecular network that pleiotropically controls feeding, growth and reproduction (three deeply interlinked processes). /3

Across these independent origins parental behavior is repeatedly underpinned by the co-option of functionally analogous, and sometimes evolutionarily homologous, molecular regulators. /2

Playing hide-and-seek with saltmarsh sparrows at Plumb beach: This East coast endemic inhabits coastal salt marshes and is endangered by habitat loss

These two mourning geckos looked like they were mating outside my hotel room in Gamboa, Panama. They are both female. The mourning gecko is an all female species that engages in pseudo-copulation to stimulate egg laying. Not sure I’ve knowingly seen female-female mounting before.

A 𝘾𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙨 worker with a strepsipteran parasite in its abdomen. Male strepsipterans look like normal insects but females are neotenic, retaining larval form throughout their lives. Females implant themselves into the abdomens of other insects & expose their anterior tip /1

(1) A moulting Cicada. (2) Moulding is a vulnerable moment - a moulting cicada getting eaten alive by big-headed ants. And (3) aduldhood also dangerous! A cicada in the mouth of a broad-billed motmot. Over the past few days in Panama.

Central Park is full of active Robin's nests at the moment. This one is at eye-level on the North side of the Pool @birdcpk.bsky.social

An American oystercatcher feeding its chick today at Rockaway beach, NY.

No kiss required to turn this pickerel frog into a prince. Catskills, NY.

One of two wrentits rehydrating at a dripping pipe in Mission Trails, California. These are endemic to west coast scrubland, from Oregon south to Baja California, and are the only New World representative of the Parrotbills. They form lifelong pair bonds.

Pink-footed geese wintering in Norfolk, where they form flocks of thousands and feed on post-harvest sugar beet tops.