Editors’ choice – How pit vipers see (infra)red

^{Image credit: Tobias Kohl}
Tobias Kohl and colleagues reveal that pit vipers track the front of a moving thermal image when processing infrared signals sent from the pit organs in a region of the brain known as the nucleus of the lateral descending trigeminal tract.

Featured article – Tails guard against voracious insects with curtain of breeze

^{Image credit: Marguerite Matherne and David Hu}
Why animals swish their tails to guard against flies was a mystery until Marguerite Matherne, David Hu and a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology began analysing the motions of a wide range of animal tails and discovered that the swinging appendages generate a breeze that is sufficient to waft away irritating insects.

Review – Invertebrate serotonin receptors: a molecular perspective on classification and pharmacology

Many 5-HT receptors have been characterized at the molecular level in diverse species. Ann Jane Tierney considers 5-HT receptors in invertebrates, addressing how to classify and name these heterologously expressed receptors and comparing their pharmacological properties.

Featured article – Signalling cocktail secures octopus mum's fate

^{Image credit: Yan Wang}
Motherhood is a fatal commitment for female octopuses, who fast as they tend their developing brood of eggs, then die just as the eggs hatch. Over 40 years ago, this selfless sacrifice was shown to be driven by the optic gland, buried deep in the female octopus brain. Now, Yan Wang and Clifton Ragsdale describe how a cocktail of signalling molecules coordinating various physiological processes is responsible for the new mother’s demise.

preLights – Antlions are sensitive to subnanometer amplitude vibrations carried by sand substrates

James Foster highlights a preprint from Vincent Lorent and co-workers revealing that antlion larvae hiding in their sand pits detect sand vibrations just a fraction of a nanometer in size. These vibrations inform the antlion of an approaching ant, and they respond by throwing sand to prevent prey from escaping their sand pits.