Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy

Grateful to have been selected as a 2026 scholar by the Karen Toffler Charitable Trust! This opportunity enables #teamwasp to leverage our social wasps as an emerging system to decode the relationship between lifespan and healthspan. tofflertrust.org/toffler-scho... #aging #zombiewasps

New research article! 📰 Amador Vargas et al. document for the first time a butterfly caterpillar that starts life eating treehoppers before sneaking into ant nests to feed on their brood 🦋 🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s000... #SocialInsects #Myrmecophily #Lepidoptera #Carnivory #TrophicSwitch

Less than one week to apply! Please reach out if you are interested!

We had an amazing time at #IUSSI2026 at Freiburg, Germany. First time as a PI bringing my team. And they killed it! Could not be prouder! Thanks to the organizers, grateful to have spent such an intellectually stimulating time and catch up with wonderful collaborators/friends.

“Females contain multitudes, even into adulthood.” RJ Milena (Rochester) speaking at #IUSSI26, sharing longterm vs short-term Polistes host neurotranscriptomics; their hitchhiking Xenos riding the endocrine wave to differentiation & development. @entomolrj.bsky.social @avispatica.bsky.social

if you are at #iussi26 come to my talk on Thursday at 15:00 in K9 and hear about how the brains of wasps who have never seen another wasp respond to wasp images

🎉🐝 The Cook Lab is giving 2 talks at #IUSSI26! Come see how honey bee brains are dealing with stress and driving task performance to collectively behave and regulate hive environment.

Want to hear about how parasites can reprogram wasps to be zombies? Come to my talk and to @nvacca08.bsky.social’s poster today at #IUSSI206!

Excited for our lab to present our work at #IUSSI26 @uissi-social.bsky.social! #zombiewasps #weaverants Looking forward to catching up with all our social insect peeps in Freiburg 🐜 🐝

📢 Introducing @uissi-social.bsky.social, the Bluesky home of the XX International Congress of the IUSSI. The Congress runs 16–20 August 2026 in Freiburg, Germany, hosted by the University of Freiburg. Tag your posts, abstracts, and travel plans with #IUSSI26 so we can find each other.

I have been tasked by @markjfbrown.bsky.social with making sure that all social insect groups go up on the map. If for some inexplicable reason you're not yet on the map, be warned - I might ambush you in the IUSSI poster session 🤣 #IUSSI2026

New short communication! 📄 J. Kim et al. report the first South Korean record of N. vespularum and a new host record in Vespula koreensis 🐝 🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s000... #SocialInsects #Strepsiptera #SocialWasps #Parasitism #HostAssociation

The countdown is on! Just 10 days until IUSSI 2026. The congress will bring together researchers, students, and professionals from around the world to share the latest discoveries, foster collaborations, and celebrate advances in the biology of ants, bees, termites, wasps, and other social insects.

Had an amazing time at #ICN2026! Thanks to @neuroethology.org for the support go integrate newer members. Our Mind Hackers satellite symposium co-organized with @zombiflied.bsky.social has opened up exciting avenues for our community and collaborations!

I’m thrilled to share that our search for a tenure-track colleague in my *truly wonderful and collegial* Genetics, Genomics, Evolution and Development Division in the MCB Department at Berkeley @berkeleymcb.bsky.social is live! Please share this broad search widely: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05481

One of my favorite talks at this year's #ICN2026

How do parasites reprogram brains so your host becomes a zombie? If you are still at #ICN2026 tomorrow Friday, come to my talk at 3:30 pm (room 2306/2309) #strepsiptera #zombiewasp

Horse Paper Wasp (Polistes major) at Crew flint pen strand in Bonita Springs, Florida 7-28-26 with wingspan approaching 2” (5cm), the second-largest species in its genus Polistes. #ColorADay #YellowThu #yellow #eck #wasps #macro #macroPhotography #photography #bugSky #nature #art #threeWordGenre

Our new paper is out in @nature.com! We uncovered how a naked mole-rat queen 👑 controls an entire colony: a natural contraceptive scent that suppresses reproduction in other females! A remarkable mammalian parallel to bees and ants! 🐝🐜 @garyrlewin.bsky.social youtu.be/enfv3zJrWKM?...

🌟🌟🌟Proud of Aidan, as part of the first cohort of our undergraduate researchers at the @nynathanshock.bsky.social Stay tuned for his finding! 🌟🌟 #aging #lifespan #teamwasp

Which neural mechanisms do parasites use to control behavior, physiology, health, and lifespan in their hosts? Join our Mind Hackers symposium at the International Congress for Neuroethology! Saturday 25: 1-5 pm #ICN2026 @neuroethology.org Thanks to @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social for the image

📣📣 Our annual conference #ABL2026 is here! 💚 Join us on 12 Nov 2026 for a full day exploring "Studying Animal Behaviour in a Changing World" 🔹 FREE & online 🔹 3 stellar plenaries 🔹 Talks & posters on diverse topics 🔹 Global-friendly time zones 🌎 Mark your calendar 📅 and don't miss this #ABL2026!

We (me and @njdowdy.bsky.social) are hiring a PhD student! Come work with us! We seek a PhD student to investigate the evolution of acoustic behavior in Lepidoptera within a comparative evolutionary framework... Job closes this week! Apply ASAP! njdowdy.gitlab.io/balogh-fello...

My lab is recruiting a #postdoc! Please share! See ad below. If interested please reach out to me via email. Deadline to apply is Sept. 1st, 2026. #wasplove

📣 SEMINAR SERIES 2026 📣 Our first seminar of the year is coming up fast! 🐜🐝 🎥 Check out this teaser! Come listen to Dr. Anna Dornhaus ( @dornhaus.bsky.social ) to hear about “What we learned about the world from studying collective behavior: algorithms, replicators, and strong inference”

I completely agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene is a sentence I never thought I would ever write.

Slaughtering our golden goose: massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A famous Cambodian mine-clearing rat, who was awarded a gold medal for his heroism, has been commemorated with a statue. Using his acute sense of smell to detect a chemical compound within explosives, Magawa would then alert human handlers of mines. 🧪🐀💥🏅 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.

Fantastic meeting full of amazing people and ideas! 🌟💡Thank you to everyone for the stimulating proposals and continued support.

🌟🌟Looking for a postdoc? Want to work with an amazing PI? 🐝

The mating of Stylops ater in the aggregation of Andrena vaga at the Institute for Bee Protection at the @jki-research.bsky.social in Braunschweig vaga is in full swing. #BeesUp

Thank you to @animalbehaviour.live for the opportunity and their wonderful initiative to make conferences more accessible to all!

🌟🌟Interested in a postdoctoral project about host-parasite coevolution and/or underlying mechanisms? 🌟🌟 Check your eligibility for this fellowship & contact me. I am particularly interested in hosting scholars from the Global South (¡Arriba mi gente!). www.hfsp.org/funding/hfsp...

From cabinets to collectomics: discovering females and primary larvae of Strepsiptera in a historical collection nhcm.pensoft.net/articles.php...

Wonderful weird: 3D reconstruction of the tracheal system and balloon gut of the male Stylops ovinae. #Strepsiptera

Introducing the Yato Protected Area -- the largest federally protected conservation area of the Solomon Islands! We are humbled to have been given the opportunity to partner with indigenous communities in Makira to save threatened ecosystems. #conservation #SolomonIslands #biodiversity

Our synthesis of the Strepsiptera fauna of the Nordic countries, led by Meri Lähteenaro, was published this week open acc. in Zootaxa. Illustrated keys, maps, new records & 2 new species described, Stylops sapmiensis on Andrena lapponica & S. serotinus on A. fuscipes. mapress.com/zt/article/v...

POSTDOC ALERT🚨 Two exciting social evolution postdoc positions live today! We're looking for two excellent field biologists. Join us to explore the evolution of sociality in wasps across Africa. Apply by 11th January. Collaboration with @dustinrubenstein.com @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

The final version of the clonal raider ant reference brain is now out OA in @currentbiology.bsky.social: 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 🧠 🐜 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Despite all challenges, I'm feeling so grateful for my team & their amazing research progress. Also, thrilled that Dr. RJ Millena @entomolrj.bsky.social has joined #teamwasp as our inaugural departmental postdoc fellow! #wasplove #strepsipteralove

Want to work with an amazing new PI who is also a wonderful person? ⬇️ 🕸️🕷️

it's my daughter's birthday and I ordered her a monster cake from Carvel and this is the picture on the website and this is the picture of it in real life. please note: this is not a complaint. if this had been the picture on the website i would have paid more

I am thrilled to announce that I just opened my lab at New York University in @nyucns.bsky.social and Biology! Our work will explore the richness of animal behavior, dissecting the genetic and circuit mechanisms that shape its evolution.

Our podcast is out! Check out our research @urochester.bsky.social that is decoding how true biohackers called twisted-winged insects control social wasps! #teamwasp #strepsiptera #zombiewasps 🐝🧟‍♀️ Please check out this fantastic initiative by @bugsneedheroes.bsky.social. Thank you for having me!

Our big review paper on strepsipteran systematics for Insect Systematics and Diversity is out! Hoping it's a helpful resource for anyone who needs it.

5/ Some wings have evolved strategies to help reduce damage resulting from collisions. For example, we learned a few years ago that wasp wings have a flexible joint that acts like a reversible crumple zone, allowing the wing tip to easily bend out of the way when it hits things...

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN. It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package. Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats