How do we know our research results are REAL? We replicate them! Most folks agree but lament on how hard it is to publish these replications. My dearest gentle reader, lament no more! Delighted to unveil: Replication Studies, a new section of Behavioral Ecology 1/ academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

This one took a while, but we’re happy to finally have it out! We were wondering how prevalent different Open Science practices are in applied ethology. To find out, check this pre-proof version that is already available. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

LIFT’s very own podcast ‘Lifting Animals’ Lives’ is finally here! Our first episode with Dr Laura Webb, Assistant Professor at Wageningen University & Vice Chair of the COST Action, is now live. Happy listening! Link to RSS website: rss.com/podcasts/lif... Link to YouTube: youtu.be/pIEGkFBHA0M

📢 Deadline approaching! There are only a few days left to submit your abstract for UFAW's Centenary Conference 2026. Submissions close on 6 February. Don't miss your chance to speak at our biggest event to date ➡️ https://ow.ly/na8g50Y7xeB #ScienceForAnimalWelfare #AnimalWelfare

January board game stats - not a bad start to 2026! @bgstatsapp.bsky.social

The ISAE 2026 congress website is now officially open! isae2026delhi.in Abstract submission is also open, please visit the website to learn more about deadlines and topics. #ISAE2026 #ISAEcongress #appliedethology

Local specialists’ experience and skills in animal behaviour studies: insights from wild chimpanzee field assistants royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

First paper of 2026 just got accepted! 🚨🎆

🐶❄️☀️ We’re studying how dogs are affected by cold and heat stress. If you have a dog, please consider completing our anonymous online questionnaire (15–30 min) or sharing it with others who might be interested. 👉 survey.vetmeduni.ac.at/index.php/83... #DogWelfare #CitizenScience

Una #vaca demuestra por primera vez un uso flexible de #herramientas y desafía lo que sabemos sobre la cognición animal @goatswhostare.bsky.social 

Online survey for dog owners on cold and heat stress and its implications for dog welfare (in English or Portuguese): survey.vetmeduni.ac.at/index.php/83... Please share, participation is anonymous, and we hope to identify indicators and risk factors of thermal stress in dogs

About a decade ago, a baker in a small mountainous village in southern Austria noticed his cow doing something unusual... My latest for @science.org about the first documented case of tool use in cattle!

Cow Tools! We have lived alongside cows for nearly 10,000 years. We breed them and exploit them It is now, only now, that we have discovered THEY CAN USE TOOLS Here I describe our study (paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in @currentbiology.bsky.social with @auersperga.bsky.social

Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Absolutely terrific study! Check the video footage in the ESM! www.cell.com/current-biol...

Is dogs’ tendency to follow human misleading communicative cues influenced by humans’ auditory perspective? link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Chimpanzees’ working memory is not affected by the presence and activity of zoo visitors link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Smart Ungulates: What Sheep and Goats' Performances in a Reversed-Reward Contingency Task Tell Us About the Evolution of Cognitive Flexibility onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🚨 Dairy farmers needed – urgent input requested! 🚨 We urgently need responses from dairy cattle producers for a survey on Positive Animal Welfare (PAW), carried out within our action (WG3). 🔗 Survey links (choose your language) are in the replies!

Loving this scene 😍🐐

🔢 42 ist die Antwort auf alles. Aber ganz sicher nicht auf die Frage: Wie schlau sind die Tiere, die wir essen? ARTE „42 – Die Antwort auf alles“ mit Forschung unserer AG Verhalten & Tierwohl am FBN & Dr. Christian Nawroth 👉 https://shorturl.at/D1l0J

📢 Registration & abstract submission are now open for UFAW’s Centenary Conference 2026. As UFAW marks its centenary, we invite you to join this 3-day conference to explore the latest developments in #animalwelfarescience. Further details and submissions: scienceforanimalwelfare2026.org

Take note! 📝 There are a lot of important dates coming up for #ASABSpring2026 and #ECBB2026 🗓️ More information here: www.asab.org/conferences-...

Goats who stare at wolves - identifying natural response stimuli for an affect-driven attention bias test in small ruminants https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.03.692016v1

Domestic goats can follow the direction of human voices to solve a hidden-object task https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.08.692563v1

ManyFishes: a big team science collaboration on fish comparative cognition link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Do pigs like to brush? An observational study of pig brushing behaviour in a commercial production environment www.frontiersin.org/journals/ani...

Code-sharing policies are associated with increased reproducibility potential of ecological findings peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....

New preprint out on "Goats who stare at wolves - identifying natural response stimuli for an affect-driven attention bias test in small ruminants"! Apparently, snakes might be the new wolves! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Review in #ProcB - From welfare indicator to welfare contributor: the role of play in building flexibility and resilience in captive animals #OpenAccess #Behaviour royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Wildlife in the city! Together with @dzg-evol.bsky.social, we are launching a special issue on "Wildlife in Urban Spaces – Adaptations and Human Perceptions” in the journal Ethology! You can find further details here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

I’ve come across fully AI-generated manuscripts and reviewer reports before, but until yesterday I had never seen a fully AI-generated retraction request—with all the same kinds of flaws. Has anyone else encountered this? And what’s the motivation behind it?

⚠️ New Postdoc or PhD position open (3 years+) ⚠️ 🚩Developmental milestones across cultures 🌍 Based @leuphana.bsky.social , in collaboration with @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social Please share/apply! Link: tinyurl.com/58dsn43u

📢 #Ethology2026 – A Double Event Join us for: • Ethologische Gesellschaft Annual Meeting, 18–21 Feb, Grünau • DK Symposium: Cognition & Communication, 23–24 Feb, Vienna A full week of ethology, cognition, and communication. univie.eventsair.com/etho26-dkcog... @ethoges.bsky.social @univie.ac.at

Just posted a new preprint! Our project builds on @maleenthiele.bsky.social's earlier work and came together through a collaboration with her and @christophvoelter.bsky.social Preprint link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Fully funded #PhDposition in Comparative Cultural Psychology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. We will use touchscreen experiments & eyetracking to study mental simulations in nonhuman apes & human children across different cultures. All info here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit... Please share / apply!🙏

The inner dynamics of positive human-animal interactions: Investigating the roles of oxytocin, opioids, dopamine, serotonin and the proteome www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The statistical fragility of animal cognition findings: a meta-meta-analytic reappraisal ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

📢 Webinar on how gamification can inspire positive change in animal welfare research - happening Nov 3rd. Don’t miss it!

Imagine if you make preprints and have them freely and transparently peer review with @peercomjournal.bsky.social ? 😇😇

📢Webinar alert📢 Gamification for positive animal welfare? Join us & @liftcostaction.bsky.social as Bahadir Odevci explores how digital tools, using challenges, rewards, storytelling & feedback, can inspire positive change. ⏰ 5 pm CET 📅 November 3rd 🔗 us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

So we made this little Ark Nova Crown 👑 — whoever wins the last game gets to pin it on their office door until someone else takes the throne. 🦁🐐🦉🐟🃏 #boardgames #boardgamestats

📌 Special issue of the 2025 ISAE International Congress 📌 “A Good Life for All Animals”. Find out more: www.applied-ethology.org/Applied_Anim...

🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology: “A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.” Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍 🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @themanybirds.bsky.social

Getting side-eyed in the barn

Congrats to the winners of the best poster and best talk of the #gradmeeg25. But all the contributions were really stunning!! @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social @denisebe.bsky.social

Impressions from #gradmeet25 @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social

Our final session focused again on methodologies 🧩 — with exciting applications from form-based approaches to assess chimpanzee gestures to facial action coding in rabbits 🐒🐇 @chiarazulberti.bsky.social #gradmeet25

Kicking off day 3 of #GradMeet25 with more talks on sociality — linking it to dispersal, cognition, and endocrinology! From social dispersal in burying beetles to hormonal changes in cheetahs 🐘🐅🦀🪲 @paulhuber.bsky.social @carolin-schlarb.bsky.social @robotowilliam.bsky.social

We’re really enjoying the #gradmeet25 of the @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social so far! It’s already been two days of learning about cool behaviors in various animals🦇🐒🐜 🕷️I’m super excited that I also got to share my own work on the effects of differential prey availability on Pisaura mirabilis females!🕷️