Mason, Nielsen and Mendl’s great textbook on animal emotions is out, with a chapter on vocal indicators by former postdoc A. Villain & me. We follow the book’s format, exploring responsiveness & selectivity of vocalisations as indicators (3 years In press but hopefully still up to date).

Vocal Signals

This chapter analyses if, based on current evidence, vocalisations have construct validity as indicators of emotional valence across species. It then explores the responsiveness and selectivity of vo...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I have a PhD project to look at the impact of climate change on an endangered WA skink 🦎. Applicants interested in herpetology, thermal ecology and collaborating with First Nations are encouraged to apply. Apply now: www.murdoch.edu.au/study/schola... Lab website: www.nicholaswulab.com

Very glad that this is finally out! Former PhD student Bing found that wild plains zebras use visual and tactile cues to decide when to move as a group. Thanks to Cedric Sueur for the collaboration!

Plains zebra (Equus quagga) group movement decisions are associated with visual and tactile behaviours performed by initiators, followers and non-followers - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Diverging needs often occurs among group members, prompting group-living animals to engage in collective decision-making, such as coordinating collective movement. Existing models classify these decis...

link.springer.com

Our new paper on beluga spatial structure is now published in Animal Behaviour! Here is the story of what we found 🧵1/6 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @marine-valeria.bsky.social @dmennill.bsky.social @raincoast.org

🚨🐒Join the Urban Vervet Project! We are currently looking for a research assistant to strengthen our on-site team at the beautiful Simbithi Eco Estate in South Africa. More info below 👇 @sofiaforss.bsky.social

Do animals use names? Conceptual and empirical criteria: Trends in Cognitive Sciences www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Do animals use names? Conceptual and empirical criteria

In recent years, several claims have been put forth suggesting that animals of different species address each other using receiver-specific calls that function as individual names. If accurate, this w...

cell.com

We're hiring a Research Assistant (Dutch, 32h/wk) in Nijmegen! • Lab exp. (VR, EEG, Motion Capture) • Annotating multimodal speech & gesture data • Starts between 1 Nov 2026 and 31 Jan 2027 • Ideal for grads in Psych, Ling, CogSci & related fields Apply by 15 Sep: www.mpi.nl/career-educa...

#passerines #evolution #biogeography #citizenscience Stunning paper, bravo!, and enthusiastic Perspective by @ebriefer.bsky.social, with three helpful - and probably familiar - birdsong recordings.

Quentin Bacquelé@quentinbacquele.bsky.social · 2w ago

1/ The world's songbirds sing in just 8 basic sounds. And where a bird lives decides which ones it uses. My first PhD paper is out now in @science.org (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aee6239) Here is what we found:

I had the pleasure to write a commentary in Science about the very comprehensive paper by @quentinbacquele.bsky.social et al. (same issue), on the factors influencing birdsong across the world. Link to my commentary: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/..., originally paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Birdsong diversity across the world

Birdsong motifs are shaped by evolutionary history, biological traits, and environmental constraints

science.org

1/ The world's songbirds sing in just 8 basic sounds. And where a bird lives decides which ones it uses. My first PhD paper is out now in @science.org (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aee6239) Here is what we found:

Do humans and birds share an eye for design? 🐦🎨 For my Master's diss, I’m testing if we share aesthetic tastes with bowerbirds. I need 100 responses to finish! Visual, anonymous & under 5 mins. Link: exe.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... 🧪 cc: @scienseed.com #AcademicSky #SciComm

New paper on sheep vocal expression of negative arousal using behaviour and eye thermal profiles as independent indicators for validation 🐑🐑🐑 @behaveco.bsky.social

Acoustic markers of negative arousal in lambs: Evidence from behavioural and eye thermal profiles

Vocalisations are known indicators of emotional arousal in animals, but their assessment using simultaneously collected physiological and behavioural …

sciencedirect.com

Important read for animal welfare researchers: new paper by Roi Mandel and colleagues on what they term ‘pragmatism bias’, i.e. tendencies to focus on intensive production systems, short-term gains, and symptoms rather than root causes. It is time for a change if we want to widen our knowledge!

Frontiers | Pragmatism bias in farm animal welfare science

A fundamental role of farm animal welfare science is to generate evidence-based knowledge on animals’ needs and well-being to inform decision-makers, and ult...

frontiersin.org

Elephants May Hear Ground Vibrations Through Their Bones Bone-conduction hearing in elephants and humans: a middle-ear comparative study🧪 www.frontiersin.org/journals/aud... These mechanisms may explain elephants' ability to detect ground-borne acoustic signals over long distances.

𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐙𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬' 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 [via Julie Elie & @sciam.bsky.social] 🧪🥼🐦💬 "birds not only announce who they are and what they are doing, but also use individual signatures [for recognition]" www.scientificamerican.com/article/will... #birds #animals #language #individuality

Will humans one day talk to animals? This scientist is bringing us closer

Julie Elie has been studying zebra finch vocalizations for years. Now, she has won the Coller-Dolittle Prize for progress toward a world where humans can talk to animals

scientificamerican.com

Great apes may have been laughing with a similar rhythm to modern humans for at least 15 million years, suggests study in @commsbio.nature.com. Findings suggest laughter has become faster, more variable, and increasingly influenced by the situation it occurs in. 🧪 #evosky #evolution

Rhythm and timing in laughter reveal that human vocal plasticity falls on a hominid continuum - Communications Biology

Comparative analysis of laughter rhythm across all extant great apes reveals that isochrony is ancestral to hominids, with tempo, variability, and context-sensitivity increasing progressively toward humans, tracing a continuum of vocal plasticity.

spklr.io

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 out now in TREE @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social "Constraint and convergence in the evolution of vertebrate sound production". Thanks to Christian Herbst, Coen Elemans, and @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social for a great collaboration. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Coming up in two days! 🤗

Elodie Mandel-Briefer@ebriefer.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Join the award event for the Year 2 of the Coller Dolittle Challenge for Two-Way Interspecies Communication on the 25.6 at 15:00 UK time on Zoom link below, for a great list of talks from short-listed applicants and a plenary talk:
zoom.us/webinar/regi...

What is much more fun than watching a football match? Watching & scoring parakeet videos together 🤗 3h with 11 people spared 4 days of work for 1 student 💪🏼 @behaveco.bsky.social

My department has funding for 2-year MByRes studentships (full tuition fees and research allowance) on ecosystem resilience, broadly defined. Apply to do a project with me modelling social-ecological networks. #culturalevolution #socialnetworks ecologyconservation.exeter.ac.uk/masteer-coho...

Have a look at the final publication here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Turns out (and I know we've all suspected it) chimp culture may be way broader and richer than 39 behaviors. 😉

Chimpanzee culture beyond the conspicuous: Evidence for broad-scale observational social learning in wild individuals

Wild chimpanzee cultures have traditionally been studied through group-level comparisons of a limited set of conspicuous skills. The cultural relevanc…

sciencedirect.com

Michael Haslam@twigtechnology.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Brilliant new study (preprint) led by @noraslania.bsky.social on how wild eastern chimpanzees observe each other. 'Peering'—or close-range attentive observation—happens in all kinds of contexts and esp. for young chimps, opening the door to new cultural traits 🧪👀 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How do other animals experience time? It's been a pleasure to work with @singhal.bsky.social and @anilseth.bsky.social on a paper exploring how temporal illusions and other experimental strategies can shed light on this. It's our today! www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

The Trump admin is trying to dismantle a major ocean monitoring network that helps scientists track data related to climate change and ocean conditions - which would worsen weather models that save lives. Good news: some lawmakers are beginning to fight back. Articles: zurl.co/l3ouf

Lawmakers fight to stop the Trump administration's dismantling of a $386M ocean observatory project

Lawmakers are demanding the National Science Foundation stop dismantling the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $386 million ocean monitoring network being wound down under President Donald Trump's administration.

zurl.co

🎉Out today: the labour of love that's our NEW paper showing dwarf #mongooses pre-emptively change #behaviour in anticipation of #intergroup #conflict... & this depends on relative group size (threat level). 👥Led by the brilliant @josharbon.bsky.social @natecoevo.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415...

🦑 🐋 #whale #pilotwhale #shipnoise #Gibraltar "They found the mammals were able to increase the volume of their calls used for short distances, but long-distance calling was more challenging, according to their recently published study." Link to study in comments share.google/IWIEgtmWE5by...

Pilot whales can’t hear each other over ship noise in Strait of Gibraltar, study finds

The rumble of ship traffic is drowning out the calls of long-finned pilot whales and potentially other marine species in the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow strip of water between Morocco and Spain that...

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1/4 The enormous complexity of algae fishing Researchers have studied in detail how chimpanzees in Guinea fish for algae. They prepare their tools (up to 4 m long) in advance, and use 22 different techniques. (paper) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

1/5 Goats and sheep pass the marshmallow test (with flying colors) In this study, goats were able to resist temptation for 63 seconds on average in order to obtain a better reward. Sheep waited 54 seconds. (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

2026. Review: The roles of individuality and social life in shaping positive animal welfare in livestock species www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Review: The roles of individuality and social life in shaping positive animal welfare in livestock species

Positive animal welfare (PAW) emphasises “a good life“ marked by the experience of predominantly positive affective states, and the development of com…

sciencedirect.com

How do social networks become adaptive? From self-organisation and phase transitions to cultural learning, social networks are shaped by feedback between individual interactions and collective dynamics. Check my new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper in @pnas.org - using playback experiments we provide further evidence that bottlenose dolphins can use individual identity signals + social memory to guide decision-making. Female dolphins use individual vocal labels to track coercive males | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...