Is bigger always better? For social animals, group size is a dilemma: big groups face more internal competition, yet hold an edge over smaller neighbors. 33 years of data on 12 wild capuchin groups reveals how these forces shape behavior. Out today in *Nat Eco & Evo*: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Postdoc Opportunity! 4-year @royalsociety.org funded post @uniexecec.bsky.social: “Understanding the role of individual cognitive variation in reintroduction biology”. Closes: 5 June 2026. More info & to apply: careers.exeter.ac.uk/vacancies/78... Wt: @paradiseparkhayle.bsky.social & Wildwood Trust

A rewarding collaboration between @saltu.bsky.social @klarawanelik.bsky.social @hanjabrrr.bsky.social @damienfarine.bsky.social @mchimento.bsky.social and myself. While single parasite infection can reduce latency to socially learn in GTs, co-infection with multiple parasites has a negative effect.

🚨Another PhD opportunity🚨 Transgenerational heat stress effects on sheep behaviour Location: Adelaide University Contact: [email protected] Details: stephanleu-ecology.com/phd-opportun... Application deadline: 17 May 2026

🎉🦜NEW PAPER ALERT 🦜🎉 Which social learning biases underly the acquisition of novel food in wild parrots ? We (@lucymaplin.bsky.social, @bjjbarrett.bsky.social, @sonjawild.bsky.social, @drjohnmartin.bsky.social) presented >700 cockies with a novel, artificial food (🧵1/6)

New paper from @julia-penndorf.bsky.social and the clever cockie research team! A wild experiment shows that cockies adopt novel foods via social learning, with info. transmitted across social networks & over space This works gives insight into how social learning enables niche expansion in cities

📢Fully-funded #PhD opportunity with us: 🐦 Quantifying (social) learning and social behaviour in an urbanised world 🐦 Position at @ceec-research.bsky.social 📆29th May deadline More info: tinyurl.com/yz28s96x Apply: tinyurl.com/2wpkb64y #cognition #socialbehaviour #fieldwork #birds 🙏Please Share

Often labeled “the world’s most dangerous birds,” cassowaries just got even more intriguing. https://scim.ag/4bNnfIT

Have a look at this great #PhD opportunity on Road Ecology at Aarhus University, Denmark 👇 Timely topic, and a great supervisor! 📅DL: 30.04 phd.tech.au.dk/for-applican... (📸: coloradosun.com/2025/12/07/p...)

The deadline applications to the CES New Investigator Award has been extended until April 2 - don't miss out getting your application in!

📢Fully-funded #PhD opportunity with us ❓Quantifying animal #movement patterns & behavioural #interactions in a changing world 👥Joint position in @bristolbiosci.bsky.social & #MacquarieUniversity 📆19th April deadline tinyurl.com/343acaev #maths #modelling #data #fieldwork #Australia 🙏PLEASE SHARE

Seeking a motivated postdoc (2+3 yrs) to study links between cognition, behavior, and fitness in lemurs at our long-term field site in Kirindy Forest, Madagascar. Join an interdisciplinary team working on wild populations. @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Apply here: www.dpz.eu

The biggest conservation win ever for the endangered Palm Cockatoo! On the back of 18 years of my research on this difficult species, People for Wildlife and Indigenous rangers and I were able to make an install an artificial hollow that was immediately used! 💥 capeyorkweekly.com.au/artificial-h...

Tracking #seabirds has become increasingly important to collect data about their space use - but how to attach the #loggers? Colleagues from @ninanatureresearch.bsky.social have developed a clamp system, which helps to keep loggers in place for several weeks to months. seapop.no/en/2026/03/n...

We've uploaded recordings of many of our seminars over the last few months to our You-tube channel, including from @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social, Kristen Ruegg, Daniel Field, @jon-slate.bsky.social, Paul Acker, @thelabandfield.bsky.social & @kokkonut.bsky.social - Enjoy! www.youtube.com/@EGIOxford

🚨 ACE Seminar We’re excited to host Dr. VPS Ritwika in our upcoming ACE Seminar! 🗓 Tuesday, Mar 17, 2026 🕖 7:00 PM JST (UTC+9) 💻 Online via Zoom 🔗 To receive the Zoom link, please send a blank email to [email protected]

Applications for the 2026 New Investigator Award are open! This award recognises outstanding ECR scholars who have contributed to the field of cultural evolution. The recipient is given the opportunity to give a plenary at a CES conference. Apply here until March 25: forms.gle/GycUhdFj7q6U...

🚀 Postdoc Alert! Are you passionate about social learning & cultural evolution? @dominikdeffner.bsky.social & I have a 3-year position with freedom to develop your research and work on cutting-edge multiplayer and immersive experiments. Apply by March 30! hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni... Pls share 🙏

What a pre-conference workshop on Bayesian statistical methods—a powerful toolkit for our community! 📊 Many thanks to Daniel Redhead and Ramona Roller for guiding us through STRAND and to Michael Chimento for the introduction to STbayes. And thank you to all participants for their energy! 🙌

NEW JOB in #ornithology chasing #nutcrackers in Switzerland to understand seed dispersal patterns: buff.ly/Cx0OOQy

New paper alert! 🦜 We gave wild cockatoos puzzle boxes across Canberra’s urban gradient. The finding? Urban birds approach faster, but are not better solvers. Our results suggest that urbanization shapes neophobia independently from cognitive performance. Read it here: doi.org/10.1093/behe...

Not to be missed!

🚨JOB alert🚨 We have three (yes, THREE) 🌟lectureships🌟 advertised in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. Broad remit, including #AnimalBehaviour & #GlobalChangeBiology ⏱️Deadline: 8th March 2026 🙏Please circulate widely 😊Come join us! Full #job details: tinyurl.com/y3us95rc

I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...

We are excited to share the third episode of our student-led outreach series! In this instalment, student representatives @ferylbadiani.bsky.social & Ishaan interview Dr. Tim Waring, Assoc. Prof. at U. Maine and head of the Applied Cultural Evolutionary Laboratory. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O3U...

Our new review of beluga sociality and culture just dropped at Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology! Some of our key conclusions summarized 🧵 doi.org/10.1007/s002... @marine-valeria.bsky.social @dmennill.bsky.social @raincoast.org

Cats and foxes are indisputable major causes of extinction and decline of Australian native mammals academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

We are hiring! We have an open position for a new lab coordinator in #primate #cognition and #behavior in the Cognitive Evolution Group at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Find out more at: sites.lsa.umich.edu/cognitive-ev...

We are hiring at the Wytham Woods for the upcoming field season. 4 roles available. Please share with anyone who might be interested. #UKbirds #birdringing

Enjoying some possum ASMR this evening [email protected]. You can see her young moving in the pouch.

A trio of tawny frogmouths. This pair (here with this year‘s fledgie) have slept in our (their) garden as long as we’ve been here, and I love them to bits ❤️

We are hiring – postdoc position exploring how kinship shapes social ageing in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social and Prof Rufus Johnstone (Cambridge) starts 1st April 2026 and ends 31st March 2029. Apps close 2nd Feb. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPZ788/p...

An insightful and engaging conversation with @pbrakes.bsky.social on how and why to conserve animal cultures

Happy 2026 ASSABers! We hope you had a stunning holiday break and a very happy New Year. A reminder that our conference is a little over 5 months away!

Counting down our most popular papers of the year.. in at no. 6 is a #BiologyLetters study showing sulphur-crested #cockatoos in Sydney learned to operate public drinking fountains, using their beaks and feet to turn taps and access water: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

What a lovely start to the year! Paddled from ANU campus to an island on the lake, had a BBQ in glorious weather, found a dusky woodswallow colony and a washed up ironbark offcut, which @damienfarine.bsky.social has made into a cheeseboard (🧀 for scale).

Do you love quantifying animal behavior as much as we do? We have just the tool for you! Presenting #OCTRON - a pipeline that helps you create rich annotation data and enables training of custom segmentation models. Have a look, particularly if you work with non-model / invertebrate organisms!

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