And here we go: Final day of the #ICN2026 is started by Maude Baldwin with the plenary talk "Functional #evolution of taste and digestive system in #vertebrates" #icn2026vancouver

Simon Sponberg shows us in his talk that all muscles act like an orchestra where spikes are precisely timed and coordinated in flying hawkmoths. #ICN2026

@chrisjdallmann.bsky.social from @jan-ache.bsky.social lab talks about motor control in fruit flies and how sensory feedback modulates motor output. Please also take a look on their preprint. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Yossi Yovel talks about the acoustic world experienced by hundreds of bats leaving a cave and how they succeed navigating in such a cocktail party nightmare. The second part of his talk was about acoustic cognitive maps in bats. 🦇🗺

Frederico Pedraja talks about collective sensing in electric fish. Electric fish could eavedrop on electrolocation signals of conspecifics. #ICN2026

Fred Wolf talks about the kinematics of jumping mouse lemur and the role of vision to estimate the leaping distance. #ICN2026

Last talk of the session was by Charlotte Rutledge, senior editor of @jexpbiol.bsky.social who talks about AI use in scientific publishing.

Halteres are relevant for flight control in flies. Payel Chatterjee talks about how inputs from halteres to the neck motor system are organized and stabilize gaze in fruit flies.

This morning we had three higlighted talks. First, Matasaburo Fukutomi talks about how social interaction affects the timing of electric organ discharges in pairs of weakly electric fish.🐠

Inside their hive, bees use a gravity compass during the waggle dance. @beetzjerome.bsky.social presents his research about how bees sense gravity.

Hui Chen from @lundvision.bsky.social continues the insect compass session with a talk about light-dependent magnetic navigation in bogong moths.

Rickesh Patel from @lundvision.bsky.social shares his research showing that bees use vector maps for navigation.

How do desert ants navigate a relatively featureless landscape? @cataglyphilosophy.bsky.social kicked off the #ICN2026 symposium on Insect Compass Systems with research on desert ant magnetoreception which helps them find their way!

The second plenary on #ICN2026 Thursday is "Elongate swimming helps explain relationships between #neurocontrol, body mechanics and the external environment" by Emily Standen. #nervoussystem #motorsystem #icn2026vancouver

New day, new science 🧠🧪 We start #ICN2026 Thursday with a plenary by Laura Quintana giving a talk about "#Neurosteroids regulating year-round #aggression: insights from #electricfish" 🐟⚡️ #icn2026vancouver #neuroethology

Driven by the shear amount of different opsins found in 🐠👁, Fabio Cortesi's group studies visual placticity in Nemo. He studies how the wavelength composition of the environment influences the opsin expression and color discrimination.

Duncan Leitch wanted to find out why Ceratophrys 🐸 wiggles its toes.

Matthew White studies how the nervous system 🧠 of the three spine stickleback 🐠 responds to dynamic environments found in Estuary. @scrippsocean.bsky.social

@jasongallant.bsky.social studies the function of electric organ discharge variability in Paramormyrops kingsleyae (weakly electric fish).

@jaystafstrom.bsky.social discovered that spiders that are actually adapted to a nocturnal lifestyle occassionally hunt during the day. 🕷 He is also looking for Phd students and postdocs. Apply if you want to learn more about the fascinating sensory world of spiders.

@ajblake05.bsky.social from @riffelllab.bsky.social lab talked about spectral sensitivity in mosquito 👁 and how the olfactory context affects color learning.

Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz talked about neuronal correlates of action planning in goal-directed navigation and how it can be studied in the wild.

Nachum Ulanovsky talks about brain recordings in bats flying over a remote oceanic island. Hippocampal neurons showed outdoors a higher dimensionality than indoors underlining the importance of recording outdoors. 🦇🏝🇹🇿

After the Heiligenberg plenary lecture, there was another session of concurrent participant talks, for example a session on #evolution of sensory and motor systems chaired by @fiorella.bsky.social who also gave the talk "One and done or back for more: stinging strategies in bees and ants" 🐝🐜

Next @jvoigts.bsky.social presented that "Mice navigate complex and natural environments by using sparse sets of paths" 🐀🧠🧪 #navigation

For example, @susannehoffmann.bsky.social introduced their research on #Neurophysiology in wild free-ranging #songbirds in South Africa reveals the neural mechanisms of duet singing 🐦🐦🎵🎶🧠🧪

The last poster session of #ICN2026 is successfully done ✅️ Thanks to all poster presenters and all visitors 🤗 We will share impressions of the #icn2026vancouver conference day below 👇

The Heiligenberg lecture this year was given by Auke Ijspeert whose group studies how central pattern generators control gait and uses an innovative computational and robotic approach to test experimental findings.

The morning session is ended by @hannahthomasy.bsky.social giving insights into "Science & Storytelling" 🤩

Next comes Finn J. Petrie with the "Planning in tiny brains: A 3D reconstruction of a Portia jumping spider wild hunt" 🕷🧠 #jumpingspiders