News & Highlights

2024

November: Narmin received a prize for the best poster at the 10th European Student Conference on Behaviour & Cognition held in Paris (see picture);

October: Helio Soares Jr. from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brasil, joined our group for two months. Jordan Cuff from the Newcastle University visited our group and gave a talk at the seminar. Altogether we made a trip to Lednice (see picture);

July: Sepid and others prepared the second street food party (see picture);

May: Domagoj Gajski received a prize for the best PhD thesis of Masaryk University in 2023 (see picture);

April: Andrea Quattrocolo from the University of Torino joined our lab for six months in order to conduct experiments for his Master thesis (see picture)

2023

October: A documentary (entitled „Kouzlo pretvarky“) showing research of our team on Batesian mimicry is available on Czech TV (see link)

September: Yolanda Piñanez Espejo from Argentina joined our team for three weeks (see picture); Domagoj Gajski successfully defended his PhD thesis (see picture).

June: Igor Malenovský and his students co-organised the 9th European Hemiptera Congress and the 29th Central European Auchenorrhyncha Meeting in Kurdějov, South Moravia (see picture and website). Liza Kvinikadze was awarded the prize for one of the three best oral presentations by students (see picture); Lenka Baranovičová received a dean prize for excellent Bachelor thesis (see document).

April: Fernando Cortés-Fossati from Spain joined our team for three weeks and Julien Petillon from France visited us for a day (see picture)

January: Wahiba Berretima from Algeria joined our team for three months (see picture)

2022

September: Six members of our group attended the 33rd European Arachnological Congress in Greifswald (see picture) and Vladka Soltysova won a prize for the best poster (see picture); prof. Jennifer Apple from SUNY Geneseo, US, joined our team for a sabbatical until the end of the year (see picture)

August: Luis Fernández from Spain joined our team for three months (see picture); Sepid prepared a cornucopia of delicious Iranian meals (see picture)

July: Sepid prepared the first street food party (see picture)

April: Domagoj Gajski received a prize for the best talk at 6th PhD Student Symposium in Zabreg (Croatia) (see picture); Sepideh, Vladimira, Ondrej, and Stano went to Cyprus to investigate ant-eating spiders (see picture)

March: Domagoj Gajski, an awardee of Brno PhD talent, showed up a commercial for the prize (see link); Domagoj, Milan and Stano went to northern Portugal to investigate ant-eating spiders (see picture)

January: Our team was awarded a new project from the Czech Science Foundation and Stano eventually became MUNI scientist after 15 years (see picture)

2021
December: Prof. Vanhara was awarded a golden medal for his contribution to the faculty (see picture)

November: Ondrej Michalek gave a talk on his research at Science Party (see link); David and Stano finished their hunt for Zodarion rubidum in Tecuci (Romania) (see picture)

May: Adam Simunek, a secondary school student, won a district competition in SOC with a thesis on analysis of venom gland in a spider with coercive copulation (see link); Ondrej Michalek received a dean prize for excellent PhD thesis

April: The career of Ondrej Michalek is covered in the last issue of Magazin M (see link); Matej Pekar, a secondary school student, won a local competition in SOC with a thesis on development of image segmentation application used in our mimicry research (see link)

March: Tomislav Gojak from the University of Zagreb (Croatia) joined our team for a few months (see picture); Our team was on Czech TV news (see video); The programme of our group seminars for this semester (see link).

February: Ondrej Michalek was awarded the Marie Curie Fellowship for a stay at the University of Queensland, Australia.

2020
December: Updated second edition of Modern Analysis of Biological Data 1 is out (see webpage)

November: Our recent research on coercive mating in Thanatus spiders was covered by the New Scientist (see link).

July: Congratulations to Vladka Soltysova and Matej Ivan who successfuly defended a thesis and were awarded Bachelor and Master degree, respectively.

June: A new bachelor student, Lenka Baranovicova, joined our team and we made a collecting trip to Lednice park (see picture).

May: A new bachelor student, Jitka Mrozkova, joined our team and we made a collecting trip to Palava (see picture).

April: You can read an interview on our paper on how ant-mimicking Micaria selects its ant model in Myrmecological News Blog (see link).

March: Monica Pramatarova from University in Sofia (Bulgaria) joined our team for a few months (see picture)

January: Domagoj Gajski was awarded the PhD Talent grant (see news); arachnology course with participants from the University of Zagreb took place at the Masaryk University centre in Telc (see picture)

2019

November: Tamas Szuts from University of Veterinarian Medicine in Budapest visited our group and gave a talk on ant-like salticids (see picture).

September: Ondrej Michalek was awarded a prize for the best student talk at the 7th Conference of the Czech Society for Ecology (see picture)

July: Collaboration of our team with CEITEC group on spider venoms was covered in the Connect magazine (see link)

June: Martina Martišová received a dean prize for excellent PhD thesis (see document)

May: Marzio Cometa from Italy joined our team for a Master thesis (see picture)

April: Glenn King from Queensland University visited our lab and we made a trip to Lednice (see picture)

March: Andrea Parimuchova from Slovakia joined our team for a month (see picture); Ejgil Gravesen from Denmark visited our group; Domagoj Gajski from Croatia is back to our group

February: Lenka Sentenska was awarded the Marie Curie Fellowship; Domagoj Gajski defended his Master thesis at the University of Zagreb; and Martin Vasicek received a prize for the second best poster at the Zoologicke dny 2019 conference (see document)

January: Our team was awarded two new grant projects (see link)

2018

December: Eva Liznarova and Ondrej Michalek came up with the script and acted in a scene of the departmental drama showing the focus of our research (see picture)

November: Andrea Tothova wrote a commentary on women in science (see link); Ondrej Michalek was awarded a prize for the best student talk at the 45th Conference of the Czech and Slovak Ethological Society (see document)

October: Narmin Beydizade from Azerbaijan joined our team for a year (see picture); Agnieszka Józefowska from Poland joined our group for a month; Ondro’s photo made it to the cover of the latest issue of Journal of Animal Ecology (see link)

September: Marcelo Christian from Germany joined our lab for a month (see picture)

August: Our team discovered how Palpimanus spiders avoid cannibalism (see paper and media cover); and visited prof. Vanhara at his home (see picture)

July: Ondrej Michalek and Yun-Yun Tsai were awarded a prize for the best talk and poster, respectively, at the 31st European Congress of Arachnology (see document and picture)

June: Lenka Sentenska received a dean prize for excellent PhD thesis; Jana Hintenausova defended her MSc thesis (see picture); our team attended the 8th European Hemiptera Congress where Jana Hintenausova was awarded a prize for the best poster (see picture)

May: Eva Liznarova and Lenka Petrakova were awarded a prize for a popular article published in Ziva (see document and picture); Martina Martisova defended her PhD thesis

April: Alastair Gibbons from Great Britain and David Ortiz from US joined our team (see picture)

March: Luis Fernandez Garcia defended his PhD thesis at Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay (see picture); Domagoj Gajski from Croatia joined our team

February: Jan Raska was awarded a prize for the best talk at Zoologicke dny 2018 (see link)

January: Professor Jaromir Vanhara was appointed an Emeritus professor (see document)

2017

December: Radek Michalko defended his PhD thesis and our team participated at the Christmas fashion show (see picture)

November: Our team discovered a sense organ in the male palp of Philodromus spiders (see paper and media cover)

October: Within the Science Night our group prepared games for children and served delicious meals (see pictures)

September: Yun-Yun Tsai from Taiwan joined our team for a year (see picture)

August: Our team attended European Congress of Arachnology (see picture), where Jan Raska won a prize for a student talk (see picture)

July: New members joined our team (see picture)

June: Radek Michalko was awarded by rector for excellent PhD results (see document and webpage); Eva Liznarova (see document) received a dean prize for excellent PhD thesis

May: Lenka Sentenska defended her PhD thesis (see picture)

April: Our team described several new ant-mimicking spiders from Australia (see paper and video)

March: We found how the personality of spiders matters in the biocontrol of pests (see paper, video, and media cover)

February: Our team discovered a large mimetic complex of golden arthropods (see paper and video)

January: Our team was on Czech TV news (see video)