Animals live in diverse environments and have evolved to cope with environmental challenges in different ways. How such adaptations shape overall brain morphology is still unclear. Here, we test how two behavioural adaptations – circadian activity pattern and migratory behaviour – are reflected in the brains of moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera). We predicted that circadian activity pattern affects primary sensory regions, wh...

Spatial orientation is a prerequisite for most behaviors. In insects, the underlying neural computations take place in the central complex (CX), the brain’s navigational center. In this region different streams of sensory information converge to enable context-dependent navigational decisions. Accordingly, a variety of CX input neurons deliver information about different navigation-relevant cues. In bees, direction encoding po...