Joan Silk
@jbsilk.bsky.social
Evolutionary anthropologist, primate behavioral ecologist.
People don't get enough credit for doing the right thing, so this is quite welcome news.
Kate Laskowski@katelaskowski.bsky.social · yesterdayThis is pretty cool 🥰 Delighted and honored and so so grateful for all the folks that helped get me through everything!
What a tragedy.
New England Primate Conservancy@neprimateconsrv.bsky.social · 5d ago"Several populations declined much faster than habitat loss alone might explain, indicating that additional pressures, including killing, illegal capture and conflict with people, may also be contributing factors." news.mongabay.com/2026/07/majo...
I have a completely different take. This is exactly how we should be using technology --- to enhance our ability to do hard and useful things like recognizing individual monkeys, folding proteins, and solving difficult computational problems.
Barbara J. King @bjking.bsky.social · last wk.Oh no- save all the primates from AI?! #primates #primatology #Anthropology #animalcognition #AI
Oh no- save all the primates from AI?! #primates #primatology #Anthropology #animalcognition #AI
In This Costa Rican Forest, Monkeys Come Face-to-Face With A.I.
CapuchinAI, a portable testing station equipped with a touch screen and facial recognition software, could help scientists study primate intelligence in the wild.
nytimes.com
Sigh. Would like to know how this compared with journals that have adopted double blind reviewing practices.
Barbara Mellone 🇺🇦@centromellone.bsky.social · 3w agoManuscripts with women as corresponding authors are less frequently sent out for review at Science. The ones reviewed receive less favorable reviews by both male and female reviewers.
Heritable variation in the lifetime fitness of female baboons; it's an amazing feat to document LRS in a long-lived animal like baboons, and even more amazing to estimate genetic heritability.
Beniamino Tuliozi@btuliozi.bsky.social · last mo.Lifetime fitness (lifetime reproductive success) and annual survival are heritable and genetically correlated in wild female baboons! Moreover, nearly all of the genetic variance in LRS can be attributable to survival to first reproduction. Out at Evolution now: academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...
Coverage of the opening of the Obama Presidential Center reminds me of where we've been and where we can hope to return Presidents Line Up for Obama’s Long-Awaited Center in Chicago www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/u...
nytimes.com
Ok, maybe environmental sex determination is interesting. But what about those markings---the pink polka dots and pink nose are really quite lovely.
Herpetozoa@herpetozoa.pensoft.net · 2mo ago🦎 Fascinating new insights have revealed how a Tokay gecko's sex and hatchling size are shaped by nest temperatures: doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.39.e165454 ➡️ Check out @pensoft.net's latest blog post for further insights from researcher Dr. Birgit Szabo: blog.pensoft.net/2026/06/12/u...
Is it ironic that this policy is being imposed by an administration that does not seem to understand the concept of conflict of interest?
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2mo agoAnother handful of sand in the gears: Researchers cannot serve on a panel *at all* if anyone from their institution has submitted to that panel. Recusing themselves for the proposal itself is no longer sufficient. This is needless, but will certainly slow things up even further.
#GreatAdaptations When life gives you lemons, make lemonade www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/s...
Looking for Love in the Big City? It’s Tough for Bowerbirds, Too.
nytimes.com
Work on ontogeny and context of peering in capuchin monkeys by Susan Perry (2020) also emphasizes its role in social learning.
MU-Peter Shimon 🀄@mu-peter.bsky.social · 2mo agoChimpanzee culture beyond the conspicuous: Evidence for broad-scale observational social learning in wild individuals🧪 www.cell.com/iscience/ful... Suggests wild chimpanzees use peering to learn a wide variety of skills, thereby highlighting unrecognized cultural potential in everyday behaviors.
Nice to know that all of those focal observations that I have asked/encouraged/pressured my colleagues and research assistants to do over the years were worthwhile.
Lauren Brent@ljnbrent.bsky.social · 2mo agoNew paper! We use simulations to test received wisdom on the observational sampling method to use and find that Altmann 1974 was right all along (never bet against Jeanne!). Focal follows capture rare, fleeting behaviours, scans captures long, common behaviours. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Follow the links to donate to a fund to help widows and children of slain rangers.
Phyllis Lee@pili-scotland.bsky.social · 3mo agoanother huge loss of wildlife protectors! virunga.org/news/two-ran...
HiveMind: I am teaching a graduate proposal writing seminar, and would appreciate suggestions for syllabi, readings, etc about how to write a good research proposal.
#GreatAdaptations. Two points for ingenuity, no points for neighborliness. Building Nests Is Hard. That’s Why Some Birds Steal. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/s...
Building Nests Is Hard. That’s Why Some Birds Steal.
nytimes.com
It's taken a while, but I have finally discovered the secrets of academic success. Find a great postdoc and ask your friends to share their data. And voila, new insights about social structure in papionin primates. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
pnas.org
Congratulations to my SHESC (ASU) colleague, Amber Wutich on her election to NAS. Her work on water security is more timely than ever.
“we analysed data for 1436 mammal species, confirming that group-living and pair-living species exhibit longer lifespans than solitary species…findings suggest that while group-living may reduce predation risk, pathogen transmission costs in larger groups may constrain longevity benefits”
Social Organisation Predicts Lifespan in Mammals
Using Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of 1436 mammal species, we show that pair-living and group-living species have longer maximum lifespans than solitary species after accounting for body mass and p...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
#GreatAdaptations Such a great adaptation that angler fish did it again and again www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/s...
How Female Anglerfish Evolved to Have It All
nytimes.com
#GreatAdaptations Why do people find this so surprising? Nature Is Still Molding Human Genes, Study Finds www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/s...
Nature Is Still Molding Human Genes, Study Finds
nytimes.com
#GreatAdaptations Curiosity + careful observation --> discovery. Interspecific mutualisms in ants: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/s...
For Ants, a ‘Cleaning Station’ in the Desert
nytimes.com
#GreatAdaptations The Ngogo research team documents the events that led to a community fission. (Spoiler: it was not neat or peaceful) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
The NSF 2027 budget has noted that they will close out the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Program (SBE). This is not a good thing. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...
This project (with Stacy Rosenbaum and Nick Grebe) began in the dark days of Covid, and is finally ready to share. We've built a living database of primate paternity data (52 species, 3000 paternities) and completed first wave of analyses of paternity distribution. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Wish I could find all those students who I misled about the why bugs used to be so big www.science.org/content/arti...
How did ancient bugs get so big? The prevailing theory may be wrong
Flying insect respiratory systems suggest abundant oxygen can’t explain ancient gigantism
science.org
