Brendan Lan
PhD student in the Sönke lab at Duke University | Vision, behavior, sensation | Mostly arachnids but honestly any funky arthropod | He/him
- Reposted by Brendan LanNetcasting spiders modulate silk thread stiffness via a tailorable multi-fibre meta-structure to construct a web that is hyperelastic and high load-bearing at the same time. Read about our discovery in PNAS: doi.org/10.1073/pnas... 🔓 & with video content!
- SO EXCITED to be finally talking about some funky preliminary results on the eyes of this funky harvestman at #SICB2026 on Tuesday! Here are a few sneak peak pics :D
- Funky harvestmen overwintering! Libitioides sayi/albolineata depending on who you ask lol. This suborder of harvestmen (Laniatores) is very speciose in the Neotropics but a couple families do range into the US. The yellowish striping on the body is UV-fluorescent! Better pics to come in Jan!
- Reposted by Brendan LanVery proud of this new paper from the lab! Work by the magnificent Andrea Adden and many brilliant collaborators illuminate how moth and butterfly brains have evolved in light of different ecologies. Freely available here: rdcu.be/eVR3B; @lundvision.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social
- Reposted by Brendan Lanrdcu.be/eSIHs We reported on the chemosensory toolkit of an Orb weaving spider in our PNAS paper earlier this year. Here, we report on a cursorial spider: similar, sex-specific sensory equipment and evidence for olfaction. 🧪🕷
- Jay has been an amazing mentor for me both during my undergrad and now!! Highly recommend people apply! Feel free to reach out if you want a mentee perspective hahah :).
- Reposted by Brendan LanDo bees see nothing? Primates with damage to the visual cortex have no conscious visual experience, but display adaptive visual behaviour (a phenomenon called blindsight). Here I team up with two primate researchers to ask if bee vision could be similar to blindsight. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
- Getting to live in a place with green tree frogs again has increased my mood by at least 10% each day
- Reposted by Brendan Lan🚨 Using polarization vision to stabilize gaze 👀 would theoretically be helpful for animals living in visually noisy environments, but it seems two decapod crustaceans use achromatic cues instead. 🚨 From @maddy-janakis.bsky.social Check it out! 🦀 academic.oup.com/iob/article/...
- love how absolutely audacious larger jumping spiders are with their prey. this is Phidippus whitmani I think. look at the twinkle in her eye!!
- Reposted by Brendan LanFunders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake go.nature.com/3X5lbUg
- Reposted by Brendan LanI've unlocked a new science badge!! 🎉🛡️🎉 This thoughtful piece by @meganlinnay.bsky.social expands beautifully on a short review I wrote, citing 'the Sumner-Rooney cost-benefit model' of eye loss 🥲 honoured! For anyone interested in evolution in low light, have a read! 👉 doi.org/10.1111/1365...
- Probably the most beautiful roach I've ever seen in real life - a flower roach (Eucorydia aenea)! This is a male, generally more iridescent than the females. Turns out, at least as adults, they love beetle jelly!
- Reposted by Brendan LanLocal news story on why MotE/ PRI is special: $̳1̳ ̳m̳i̳l̳l̳i̳o̳n̳ left to raise before the end of 2025 to save the Museum of the Earth at the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, NY. #SavePRI 🧪⚒️ #museums #dinosaurs #Mastodon #Ithaca #fingerlakes www.wbng.com/2025/10/27/m...
- Reposted by Brendan Lanthere is already a way to extend life and youth indefinitely 1. Be a stored-grain dermestid beetle larva (say, Trogoderma) 2. Every time food gets scarce, moult backwards into a previous instar 3. Proceed to grow as usual 4. Repeat step 2
- Reposted by Brendan Lan#ABL2025 Plenary Spotlight: Dr Floria Mora-Kepfer Uy ⭐ Join us on Nov 13-14 to learn how @avispatica.bsky.social Dr Mora-Kepfer Uy’s team uncovered captivating ways in which parasites reprogram the behaviour and lifespan of insects. 🐝🪱 Learn more about the conference: ablaoc25.sciencesconf.org
- A drop dead gorgeous roach! Look at that iridescence! 💙🧡
- Reposted by Brendan LanBanger paper! “Perhaps we should abandon the search for ‘cognition’ in terms of representational capacities distinct from systems for sensing and moving” royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
- Reposted by Brendan LanA Moment of Awe- a night walk at Kenting National Park by @brendanlan.bsky.social, SICB journals follower,& #PhD iobopen.com/2025/08/11/a... "Despite a societally ingrained fear of #bugs, #butterflies manage to enchant practically everyone. I mean how could they not? " #science #biology
- Reposted by Brendan Lan“A new study, published today in PLOS ONE, identifies and describes 30 dance moves in captive cockatoos and suggests dancing can be a form of mentally enriching play for caged birds.” #scicomm #animalcommunication #playbahavior www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪 🦜
- Reposted by Brendan Lando you think maybe, if I just take and upload enough shrimp portraits, then somehow everything will turn out okay and museums won't have to run out of money and close anymore
- National Moth Week starting off with a bang!! Found a live female imperial moth on the way into work and a dead male luna moth when I got there! First saturniids of the year for me :)
- An endangered golden birdwing 黃裳鳳蝶 (Troides aeacus kaguya) along with a nearby chrysalis from southern Taiwan! This one looked to me like it had just emerged and was finishing up drying its wings. Beautiful and huge in person!
- Reposted by Brendan LanFor the past few years in late June/July I've spotted a fancy Phidippus richmani lad hanging out on a particular oak sapling, and today there was another. I don't know why that little oak is so attractive, but I'm not complaining.🖤 They're relatively rare--and welcome--sights. #EmotionalSupportSpood
- Reposted by Brendan LanHighlight of this week: One of many collaborations effort with @binturong98.bsky.social that started ~ 2022 finally got published! We induced cataracts in the camera-type eyes of diving beetle larvae! journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
- Reposted by Brendan LanProud to share our newest gecko paper published @ecol-evol.bsky.social! We raised geckos either with or without their parents and found some effects on the development of behaviour and cognition! Read the rest here: doi.org/10.1002/ece3...
- Reposted by Brendan Lan🚨 In our world riddled with misinformation and sensationalization, we must be cautious about handling accusations of scientific misconduct in our community. Weaponizing a public internet campaign is not the way. 📖 Read "A plea for academic decency" link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- Excited to find one of these! This is an adult male Phileurus truncatus (called 'triceratops beetles' tho I argue Strategus deserves that name), an oddly carnivorous rhinoceros beetle! A first for me!! 🪲🪲🪲
- Reposted by Brendan Lan[This post could not be retrieved]
- 📣 job posting for an Entomology/Arachnology Collections Manager at the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles! @nhm.org Take a look 👀 workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...
- Reposted by Brendan LanDon't forget to join us tomorrow for this webinar with a fantastic line-up of speakers and topics! 🤩 🦗🐠🐸
- Reposted by Brendan LanHi everyone, I am launching a community science scheme "Spider Spies" where we are asking you, to send us pictures and if you're keen and able samples of Misumena vatia, the Flower Crab Spider to investigate their interactions with their host flowers and the invertebrate community around them.
- FINALLY found one of these after weeks of searching - Caddo agilis! One of the weirdest Opiliones out there. Looking like a bobtail squid on 8 legs 🐙 #invertefest
- Reposted by Brendan LanDay 1 of photoshopping John Oliver onto/into fossils in the hopes that he saves my old museum, the Paleontological Research Institution I think he makes a great snail! Fossil is the Murex shilhoensis type, a junior synonym of Favartia shilohensis, comedian is H. sapiens #savepri #Museumofthearth
- One of the most underrated non-insect hexapod for sure. There are some huge species out there that *may* be inhabiting the niche that scorpions typically do.
- Reposted by Brendan LanDo you have questions about this "dire wolf" "de-extinction"? I am probably going to make a video tomorrow. (Note: They are not dire wolves, and it is not a de-extinction)
- Reposted by Brendan LanWith its UFO-like display, the cuttlefish may look like it’s trying to get attention—but its intent is anything but. The undulating black stripes confuse prey, making the creatures all but invisible to crabs and other victims: scim.ag/3FVL43z
- This is just plain awesome
- “The undulating black stripes confuse prey, making the creatures all but invisible to crabs and other victims” “The discovery is the first known example of an animal masking with this specific type of motion camouflage to hunt.” #scicomm #sensoryecology www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪 🦑 🐙
- Reposted by Brendan LanSuper excited to have received a @hfspo.bsky.social grant with with @neurofishh.bsky.social for our proposal: Eyes inside out: Visual coding without a multilayered retina in squid and worms.
- Reposted by Brendan LanWe polled Nature readers to ask if they were thinking of leaving the US for jobs abroad. Three-quarters of them (who said they were US-based scientists) said yes. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- why hasn't anyone told me how cool pencilfish are?! My partner and I got a few for a tank and they are SO COOL. slanted (oblique?) swimming and dark-induced pattern change! bioone.org/journals/zoo...
- some Fun Finds™️ from a beach near Boston w/ my partner
- Reposted by Brendan LanMVZ Professor Jim McGuire and Former MVZ Postdoc Simon Scarpetta find that Fiji iguanas are most closely related to the North American desert iguana — evidence of the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any land animal. bit.ly/3DMIAUD
- Reposted by Brendan LanTaxonomic work depends on museums, herbaria, and other repositories where specimens are stored. This includes the specimens that authoritatively identify what a species name corresponds to- the type. University support for these institutions is declining, and they need our help www.priweb.org/donate
- Reposted by Brendan LanHappy #taxonomistappreciationday! Taxonomy is the science that names and identifies species, forming the basis of communication in other fields of biology. My own expertise is in marine snails, especially the Turritellidae.
- the salamander 'migrations' (actually a wild sex party but the media censors that part) were glorious this weekend!
- Reposted by Brendan LanDo you think cities are LOUD 🔊? Spiders seem to think so! 🕷️ Urban 🌆 spiders construct webs that lose energy at a much broader range than the webs of rural spiders 🌱 likely to avoid sensory overload! 🧠 by Dr. Brandi Pessman & @hebetslab.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Brendan LanParasites on pycnos....this Pallanopsis sp. sea spider (Pycnogonida; Pallanopsidae) has a gooseneck barnacle tag along....captured in #Antarctica on the continental shelf. LMG13-12 cruise. 🧪🦑🌎🐧🇦🇶
- Reposted by Brendan Lanthis twitchy creature traveling across a wooden handrail in Singapore is Myrmeplata wanlessi. if you are a human unfamiliar with this species, or a bird or lizard this display is aimed at, you might be surprised to learn that this animal is a jumping spider, not an ant.
- on the hunt for boreids - no dice these guys were cute though ♥️
- Reposted by Brendan LanJust a girl and her bundle of baby clones she's wearing like an ass turban 🥹 My population of Schizomida (parthenogenic tailless whipscorpions) are so happy in their box of dirt. As always, tending a box of dirt is such a good decision and I recommend it.
- Reposted by Brendan Lan@science.org just published this article about the Paleontological Research Institution and its importance in this time of financial crisis for the institution. Please share widely as donations in any amount can make a real difference in the short-medium term. ⚒️🧪🦑 www.science.org/content/arti...
- funky little twig spider (Poltys) with some sclerotized spots on the posterior end of its abdomen. love these guys sm
- Reposted by Brendan Lan🕷️ Spiders have a modular visual system with 8 eyes 👀 that are able to specialize for varying tasks Turns out, a pair of secondary eyes 👀 (the two smaller ones flanking their large ones) are specially tuned for perceiving biological motion! 🦟🪰 Check it out!: journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
- Reposted by Brendan Lanabsolutely delightful recent ("recent") paper blowing the lid open on a super rare genus of hydrophilid beetle. Two specimens collected ca. 1919, then NOTHING for decades. Turns out they were living INSIDE the flowers of Malaysian aroid plants dez.pensoft.net/article/2626...
- Reposted by Brendan LanSome of my favourite #harvestman #opiliones shots from last year. Getting a good shot is tricky without a stray leg getting in the way😅. They're #arachnids but don't spin silk or have venom. They can't re-grow legs like spiders either and I often find them with several missing. #macrophotography
- Reposted by Brendan LanHappy Lunar New Year! For the Year of the Snake, here's one of my favorite #snake friends, the Sharp-tailed Snake. They eat slugs so they like hanging out in my backyard & garden. #lunarnewyear #yearofthesnake
- happy lunar new year! 🐍 here's an Atayal slug-eating snake (泰雅钝头蛇) trying to focus on 🐍 instead of 😞 today
- Reposted by Brendan LanPhrynus asperatipes from south of La Paz, Baja California Sur. This was the first amblypygid I've ever seen in the wild! Second photo is a a full body shot that shows the first pair of legs that are sensory in function and give them the name "whip scorpions"
- Reposted by Brendan LanCornell student newspaper article about PRI and how it supports teaching at Cornell cornellsun.com/2025/01/27/m...
- Reposted by Brendan Lan2- We found out that Pycnogonida diverged from the rest of the chelicerates during the Cambrian (~539-510 million years ago) while modern sea spiders (order: Pantopoda) took another 100 million years and appeared between the Silurian and the Devonian (~435-367 mya). #CambrianExplosion
- Reposted by Brendan Lanskimming a paper about beetle prey of robber flies (they're often pinned together in collections) and let's all take a moment to imagine the SIZE of the asilid that took down a whole ass Prionus
- Reposted by Brendan LanUpdate and clarifications from PRI. www.priweb.org/press-releas...
- two-tailed spiders - Hersilia sp. characterized (at least to me lol) by those loooooong spinnerettes and spindly legs these were pretty active in northern Taiwan even in the cooler months of February/March take a look at how cryptic they are against their backgrounds!
- Reposted by Brendan Lanthis is a crazy time to be applying for a phd that's for sure
- here's an article written by one of my closest friends on the importance of the Museum of the Earth in her life and in the lives of Cornell students at large check it out! -> cornellsun.com/2025/01/20/g... & if you would like to, please sign the petition! -> www.change.org/p/save-the-m...
- Detailed article about PRI and the Museum of the Earth's current struggles. If the museum closes it may be the largest collection dispersed/lost in the US (with 7 million specimens it is one of the 10 largest in the US). ⚒️🧪🦑 Please share widely and help if you can! ithacavoice.org/2025/01/muse...
- an appreciation post for some of the funkiest little lepidopterans very out of my depth with these, so ID's appreciated! all from northern Taiwan check out the bird-dung mimic 🐦...
- one of the WEIRDEST spiders out there - Miagrammopes sp. species in this genus have 4-6 eyes, stubby legs 2 and 3, have no venom (along with the rest of the family), hunt weird, and look WEIRD check out @nickybay.bsky.social's work for much better pics :) #scicomm #spider #stick
- Reposted by Brendan LanThe little Tiktaalik wants YOU to go to the Paleontological Research Institute’s website, buy a bunch of plushies of Paleozoic life, and help them out in their time of dire financial need! pri-gift-shop.myshopify.com
- Reposted by Brendan LanIf this reaches any Cornell alums, letters of support directed to Cornell would be appreciated and could be sent to PRI. We were only affiliated in the most tenuous manner with Cornell and while many faculty are supportive admin is hesitant to help given circumstances.
- my roommate and good friend fell in love with paleontology - due in large part to the PRI. on top of having millions of fossils in their collection, the PRI is many bio undergrads’ main exposure to natural history museums at Cornell. please support and share widely! ❤️
- Detailed article about PRI and the Museum of the Earth's current struggles. If the museum closes it may be the largest collection dispersed/lost in the US (with 7 million specimens it is one of the 10 largest in the US). ⚒️🧪🦑 Please share widely and help if you can! ithacavoice.org/2025/01/muse...
- this was weird - a giant red-headed centipede chowing down (or trying to) on a snail never seen any 'pedes go after gastropods before but i mean they're yum enough for France so why not
- surprised to find a couple brumating alligator lizards - I’d say 3rd coolest lizards in the Central Valley
- Reposted by Brendan LanMissing her (Bolas spider) 🤎 I have a 4-minute video of her making her little silk bolas. 2022 was a god-awful year for me in pretty much every respect, except the bugs. The bugs were amazing. #Arachtober
- Chitoria chrysolora (台灣小紫蛺蝶), just a little guy! one of the wild caterpillars with a heavily armed head - similar to the dragon's head caterpillar or the Japanese emperor caterpillar that made the rounds on the internet a while back #caterpillar #nature #macro #scicomm #Taiwan
- the iridescence on this guy blew me away... a beautiful male lichen huntsman (Pandercetes) that was oddly out during the day
- with the way the purple iridescence is positioned on the femurs (2nd photo) I wonder if it's some sort of sexual/courtship signal to (mostly more drab) females...
