@hasbeanbeetle
PhD Candidate @ The University of Western Australia (UWA) 🫘🪲 | Representative for @ceb-uwa.bsky.social (CEB) 🧬 | 2026 Social media officer for @ausevosoc.bsky.social (AES) 🦘 | Peer Supporter @ The Living Room 🌱 Living and working on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja
🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠
@hasbeanbeetle.bsky.social is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia currently working on sexual selection in cowpea seed beetles. He is not a father, yet still doesn’t have time for hobbies or interests of his own 🥀
🌠 Meet Our Exec Committee for 2026 🌠
Yong is a DECRA fellow at the University of Western Australia working on the impact of sexual selection on life history traits and their trade-offs. One current focus is the physiological mechanisms mediating these effects, such as diet and oxidative stress 🥦
Hello friends!
We are ⭐ Kim, Nirjana, and Aadhi ⭐ the new CEB representatives for 2026!
Over the coming year, we'll be sharing all the exciting and diverse research happening within CEB, so stay tuned.👀
🐜 @brainiants.bsky.social🧠
🪲@hasbeanbeetle.bsky.social 🫘
🦜@nirjana-dewan.bsky.social 🧬
Took a short break from beetles🪲...
Carly Newcombe and I were fortunate to present at the WA Teaching and Learning Forum 2026 hosted at @curtinuniversity.bsky.social.
We spoke about UWA's The Living Room (TLR) and the work we do as the first point of wellbeing support for so many UWA students🌱!
Cryptic spiders 🕷️❓
Congratulations to #CEB member Jackson Rendall on their recent publication in Austral Entomology (@austentsoc.bsky.social) about the natural history of the South Australian spiny trapdoor spider (Blakistonia aurea).
Read the paper here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
5.Started a journal club for the CEB, innovatively named the “CEBrief”.
6. Got stuck in an elevator.
7. Won a “Best Poster Award” for the RSWA 2025 Poster presentation competition. It was a sobering experience walking into a room filled with rectangular posters.
Onwards and forwards. Beantastic.
3. Presented my proposal to an enthusiastic crowd of CEB members. Got a lot of amazing feedback and fell in love with morph transitions.
4. Supervised master’s students for a mini beetle research project! They are doing great, and I was there to say encouraging things.
Quick fire big bean updates from the past few months:
1. Began demonstrating labs and running tutorials at UWA! Helping students in the same place I was 5 years ago has been extremely humbling and rewarding.
2. Proposal completed - I am now 0.5% closer to achieving my dreams of obtaining a PhD.
Great flash talk by Jackson Randell at #AES2025! @ceb-uwa.bsky.social
Great talk by Kim Wong at #AES2025 … this talk never gets old! @brainiants.bsky.social @ceb-uwa.bsky.social
Avantika Sharma showcasing her plans for her PhD on intrasexual selection in magpies at #AES2025. Great work Avantika! @mandyridley.bsky.social @ceb-uwa.bsky.social
Who doesn’t enjoy a good animal behaviour video at #AES2025? Andrea Piccinini surely had captured our attention by presenting his work on post-copulatory mating behaviour in mygalomorph spiders 🕷️ @austevolsoc.bsky.social
🐞 Ornaments Aren’t Just for Males 🏆
@hasbeanbeetle.bsky.social is studying female beetle ornaments, testing whether traits such as melanisation are used in mate choice, conflict, or resistance to harm — showcasing that ornaments may have functions beyond mate acquisition. 🐞👩❤️💋👨🥊 2/11
Crazy! Who would do such a thing?!
Presenting at the CEB ✅ Was awesome having a large and engaged crowd!
More presentations and emotional-support beetles to come.
@brainiants.bsky.social discussed her PhD proposal this afternoon where she plans to study variation in intraspecific cognition & its relation to complex behaviors, specifically combat and group foraging in Western Australian ants. 🐜 @mandyridley.bsky.social @notthebestsam.bsky.social #LeighSimmons
Darwin came to town!
@beetlebonking.bsky.social @brainiants.bsky.social @upama.bsky.social
#UWAOpenDay #EvolBio #EnvironmentalScience