A big step forward in how we model NBDA, with a great step-by-step user guide. Check it out!

Congratulations to Hanna Kokko for receiving this year’s ASAB medal! Hanna has done extraordinary work and we are so pleased to honour her at #ASABWinter2025

We couldn't have asked for a better end-of-year lab BBQ / stroll at a local nature reserve. Spotted platypus, emu, bandicoots, roos, wallabies, YTBC (black cockies), wedge-tailed eagles, and of course hundreds of sulphur-crested cockies feasting on the wattles. Glorious!

Sorry to hear that Martin Parr has died. When he was documenting Oxford University he came out to Wytham Woods to photograph our team doing fieldwork - featuring @mcmahok.bsky.social & @lucymaplin.bsky.social as well as Fraser Bell & Ella Cole. The generally serious demeanour was at his request!

Meet Chrissie Painting the new ASSAB president! @cpaintingnz.bsky.social is a Senior Lecturer and behavioural ecologist at the University of Waikato. Her research seeks patterns in animal behaviour and morphology, with a particular focus on insect and arachnid mating systems. 🪰🕷️🪳

Where to start, with a statement like this? "Tim Ayres said the cuts were aimed at refocusing … CSIRO towards research priorities, such as critical minerals, iron & steel production in Australia." From some rando down the bus stop, one would brush it off. But this is from our Science Minister 🤯

Only 2 days left to get your abstracts in!

Calling all parrot enthusiasts!

Just 1 week to apply! 4 year @erc.europa.eu funded PhD position working in an interdisciplinary team to study #culturalEvolution as a process of reuse, recombination, and creative re-engineering of past solutions. Details 👉 hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... 🙏Please share!

Our common garden pigeons: crested pigeons, & (personal fav of @damienfarine.bsky.social) the common bronze-wing. Every evening the bronze-wings waddle down the garden path to commute to our bird bath. Check out that underwing!

📢 The Call for Abstracts for Culture Conference 2026 is officially OPEN! 📢 🗓️ Deadline: 8 Dec 2025 We welcome submissions from all career stages and relevant disciplines. 🔎Details & submission info: culture-conference.com/abstract-sub... Keynote speakers & workshop details coming soon!

I would have loved to do this!

A special type of fishing takes place in southern Brazil: dolphins drive the prey into the net. The fishermen work so closely together that even their heart rates synchronise. Discovered by a research team led by #UniKonstanz @cbehav.bsky.social biologist @hanjabrrr.bsky.social: t1p.de/d56g3

POSTDOC JOB AD: I'm hiring a Bayesian ecologist to build a (IMO, extremely fun) model of humpback whale spatiotemporal dynamics in California 2-year position starting fall 2026. in-person in Santa Cruz; collab w with Mevin Hooten's lab at UT Austin. ask me Qs or apply: recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF02003

🚨 Cultural Evolution PhD Alert!

Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Peak cockatoo breeding season! Look out for those pairs lucky enough to secure rare real estate; they should be feeding chicks now.

'The Australian Academy of Science has savaged the Strategic Examination of Research and Development (Serd) for overlooking a long-term funding decline which has left basic research at “breaking point”.' Worth remembering that when Australian HE sector sneezes, UK HE sector.... 1/2

Today IUCN has officially declared the Slender-billed Curlew extinct, marking the first known global extinction of a formerly widespread migratory bird species whose range included mainland Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. Read more here ⬇️ www.unep-aewa.org/fr/node/6632

Our study demonstrates alternative pathways to direct cultural inheritance from parents in species with multiple offspring and limited periods of parental care that can lead behavioral similarities within family units. (4/5) www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4u1...

Presenting juvenile songbirds with sliding door foraging puzzles, we found that while the first learners of a sibling cohort did so from non-parental adults and partially from parents, subsequent siblings almost exclusively learned from their already knowledgeable sibling. (3/5)

Out today in @plosbiology.org (1/5) Siblings and non-parental adults provide alternative pathways to cultural inheritance in juvenile great tits 🐦🧩 Link to study: 10.0.5.91/journal.pbio... Co-authors: @lucymaplin.bsky.social @galarconnieto.bsky.social

@sonjawild.bsky.social @galarconnieto.bsky.social & @lucymaplin.bsky.social show that young #GreatTits, which have limited #ParentalCare, learn to solve a foraging #puzzle socially, but rather than parents, siblings & non-parental adults are preferred role models @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/46JZn6n

🦅PhD position 🦅 in my new group at @fbm-unil.bsky.social in Switzerland, studying how the social and resource landscapes shape the learning process for soaring flight. Deadline: Oct 30. Pls repost! career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Obituary: Jane Goodall (1934-2025) Pioneer primatologist who inspired generations of scientists go.nature.com/48aWjRU

TRAVEL AWARDS - Apply for a travel award to support your trip, accommodation and registration! Application guidelines on www.isbe2026.com

#ISBE2026 Call for Abstracts is now open! Submit your abstract by 15 December 2025 on www.isbe2026.com @behavecol.bsky.social

We're looking for a new postdoc on our new BBSCR grant (Graham Taylor/Tim Guilford/Cait Newport). See link below! my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

We are hiring - PDRA position exploring how information access shapes social dynamics in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social Prof Dan Franks (York) start 1st Nov (or ASAP) end 31st Oct 2028. Apps close on 19th Oct. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOT336/p...

**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)

A reminder: the environmental costs of fireworks ain't trivial www.publish.csiro.au/PC/PC22040

Come & work with us - fully funded 4 year PhD on Social Ageing: Social environment effects on senescence, using an epigenetic clock www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor... @rug.nl @david-s-richardson.bsky.social @keesvanoers.bsky.social @seychelleswarbler.bsky.social photo: @charlisdavies.bsky.social

Caught mid fluff! Little corellas are a smaller species of cockatoo (Cacatua sanguinea) that often join sulphur-crested cockatoo flocks, especially in urban areas.

Attending my first international conference, Behaviour 2025, was an amazing experience😊 I got to meet so many people interested in the same field and received a lot of valuable feedback. Excited to turn this work into a publication! #vetmeduni #Behaviour2025 #kea #poster

The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco. Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee: Sarah Alami (co-chair) Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair) Zachary Garfield Edmond Seabright

Update: the deadline for the Biological Basis of Behavior has been extended to Sept 18th! ✨ aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05054 Please reach out to Linda Wilbrecht if you have any questions about the position.

That's the spot...! A trio of allopreening cockies engaging in some social bonding at our field-site, captured by @elliearose.bsky.social. If you'd like to learn more about when and why cockies allopreen, check out a recent paper by @julia-penndorf.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The secret to shrew brain shrinkage? 🤔 Not cell loss, but water loss! Our new paper shows that brain cells shrink by losing water, a wild feat of brain plasticity 🤯 Check the paper! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @labdavalos.bsky.social @batichica.bsky.social

Meet the 28 new Fellows being admitted to the Academy today at Science at the Shine Dome! 🎉 Elected by their peers for exceptional contributions, they’re shaping science through inspiring stories & groundbreaking research. Join us as we delve into their inspiring stories... vimeo.com/showcase/118...

Professor Susanne von Caemmerer FRS and Professor Graham Douglas Farquhar FRS are jointly awarded the Royal Medal (Biological) 2025 for refining the ways we monitor and model photosynthesis in leaves from molecular to global scales. #RSMedals https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/royal-medals/

📢We’re recruiting! 🌳Assistant Professor in Ecology, Evolution & Conservation A permanent teaching-focused position in our vibrant, welcoming and intellectually stimulating academic community. Deadline: 7 September. Apply here: bit.ly/3HKtNeZ

Lab member Lara Blumenstiel is currently wrapping up the last stage of training before moving on to cognitive testing. Sydney's clever cockies are playing her custom puzzle-box like pros!

Last week we learned the Great Barrier Reef has suffered some of the worst bleaching in history This week, Ningaloo, another 🇦🇺 icon is experiencing catastrophic coral loss These are national treasures. We must take strong action on climate to save them. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

It’s #NationalScienceWeek! 🐦 Our HANZAB encyclopaedia is now online & free – covering every bird ever recorded in Aus, NZ & Antarctica. Updated with the latest taxonomy & threat statuses, it’s a game-changer for bird lovers & researchers alike 🔗 hanzab.birdlife.org.au #BirdLifeAustralia #Birds

We are pleased to announce our newly elected committee members of the Cultural Evolution Society: Minhua Yan @minhuayan.bsky.social Helena Miton @helenamiton.bsky.social Wataru Toyokawa @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social & Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social Welcome and congratulations!!

Channel-billed Cuckoos are big fig-eating parasitic cuckoos of Aust, Indonesia and PNG. Migrate S Sept-April where they lay their eggs mainly in the nests of Crows, Magpies and especially Currawongs. Seriously hated by other birds who harass them constantly! #WildOz #birds #AustralianWildlife

An extremely clever cockie, or one regretting their life choices? Spotted at our Canberra field-site by @lisafontana.bsky.social, it's first time we've seen a sulphur-crested cockatoo successfully fledge 3 chicks! The usual is 2 eggs laid, resulting in 0-1 chicks.

An exciting & important new paper by @annamkearns.bsky.social & co-authors: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10..... Conservation genomics of the previously assumed to be extinct night parrot, showing recent connectivity between populations ~2000 km apart, but very low effective population sizes.

JOB ALERT 🚨 Tenure-track assistant professor in population genetics, comparative genomics and/or bioinformatics applied to biodiversity monitoring and conservation biology at Aarhus University, Denmark. Aarhus is super nice y'all. Apply! 🧪 🌍 🧬 #AcademicSky #ScienceJobs tech.au.dk/en/about-the...

3-year #Postdoc opportunity at the University of York! I am #hiring a Postdoc to join my URF project on exploring how #biodiversity change is unfolding in the #Anthropocene. Deadline: 10th August 2025. All details and the link to apply: shorturl.at/qOQst @anthropocenebio.bsky.social #ecology