CRAB Summer Bash & Croquet Tournament in the beautiful Devon "sunshine"! Congratulations to Lisa, Una, @libbychaps.bsky.social and Sophie- inaugural winners of the coveted BLUE CRAB trophy.

Does it matter whether you use focal sampling or scan sampling to collect animal behaviour data? We used simulations to find out, testing how accurate and precise each method is across a range of behaviours, study systems, and observation protocols.

New 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...

We are recruiting 🌟2 postdoctoral researchers🌟 for a NERC Large Grant project on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of badger - bovine tuberculosis (bTB) interactions.

Primate Profile #27: Colombian Night Monkey Being nocturnal and socially monogamous makes these big-eyed monkeys odd among the primates. The male assumes most parenting responsibilities besides nursing, and the female will not do much else to help, even if he dies! Image: D Monroy (iNat.org)

🚨 PhD opportunity 🚨 Fully funded PhD at the University of Bristol (UK) on how ant colonies remodel their nests to optimise performance under pressure, combining experimental work, quantitative analysis, and field work. Detail/how to apply: stroeymeyt-lab.co.uk/open-positio... Deadline: 5 June 2026

📢Are you searching for a postdoc possition? Have a look to this very interesting opportunity to work with red wood ants in an amazing team! 🐜 @elvarobinson.bsky.social #postdoc #research #science #redwoodants

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...

I am currently building a database of primate age structures and I've realised how little I previously knew about primates. So I've decided to do a "Monkey of the Moment": each day I will introduce a new primate (not all monkeys!) with my favourite new fact about that species. Hope you enjoy! 🦧🦍🐒

CRAB Posters at #ASABSpring2026 from @helephantmylne.bsky.social , Bryony Jenkins, Eleanor Benson, Sophie Pettit , and Henry Moreau-Smith (Pictures taken in the very rare gaps when they didn't have customers)

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

Brilliant plenary from @elvarobinson.bsky.social at #ASABSpring2026 . Science! Advice! Ants! And a mention of me! In short everything you could want in a talk.

CRAB are at @asab-spring-2025.bsky.social in Bristol in strength for the next couple of days. Today @libbychaps.bsky.social presented work from her PhD on rabbit social ontogeny. More CRABers to come tomorrow!

How long do primates live? Come and find me at #ASABSpring2026 poster number 2 to find out about my model (or not if you aren't stats keen!) and how we are investigating the evolutionary causes of primate lifespan 🐒🦧

With just over a month to go until #CityNatureChallenge 2026, great to see evidence that it does actually help! We are entering Exeter for the first time so anyone who would like to help with either species recording over the weekend or IDs across the following 2 weeks would be much appreciated! 🎉

Join us in Copenhagen in June for our summer course on programming in R! - Aimed at PhD students in behavioural ecology, others also welcome - No prior programming knowledge needed Deadline for sign-up: May 1 More info here: programmingintrocph.weebly.com

Aging may feel gradual… but what if it’s not? In our recent paper, we tracked fish continuously from puberty until death. This gave us a unique view of how aging unfolds across the adult lifespan. 🧵

New paper on age-related reproductive tactics & success in humpback whales, published in Current Biology.🐳🧬 doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... #marmam @seamammalresearch.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social @emma-carroll.bsky.social @clairenea.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social 1/7

New (competition funded) PhD opportunity with me, @iaciac.bsky.social and @dralgernon.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Higher-order networks and animal communication. Suited to someone keen on network science theory/computational modeling and keen to adapt this to ecology & evolution.

A new paper in @plos.org Complex Systems from my time at @nimbios.bsky.social with Nina Fefferman. We set out some ways of classifying rules for social learning and knowledge exchange in higher-order networks. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

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

Charli Grimes discusses the social ontogeny of resident killer whales, exploring how lifelong social bonds form and change from early life through maturity. 🐋🤝 #UKIRSC26

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...

Fully funded #PhD studentships, start Sept 2026: 1. Weaponry and aggression in wild fiddler crabs, with me, Safi Darden, Martin How tinyurl.com/weaponsPhD 2. The emotional basis of behaviour, with me, Danny Williamson, Andy Higginson tinyurl.com/emotionsPhD #AnimalBehaviour @crab-exeter.bsky.social

Our paper is published today in Current Biology and is featured on the cover! We report a neat, and somewhat counter-intuitive, finding: higher-ranking baboons get less and more interrupted night-time rest.

Late-reporting, but last year some of our CRABbers headed up to Edinburgh to present their posters at the @asab.org Winter meeting. Well done all! @libbychaps.bsky.social @charli-ocean.bsky.social and @ Manuela Carona R

Festive Season in CRAB, which we celebrate with a quiz and by rediscovering the password to the CRAB Bluesky account.

New paper out in iScience. We found the pattern of Guinea baboon meat transfers follows the shape of their nested multi-level society. Transfers of meat are more tolerant at the lower levels of the society and are more likely to occur along stronger social relationships. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

❓ Want to join us? 📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates 🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork 👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy 🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project... 🙏Share widely

MSc by Res opportunity - developing behavioural indicators to inform killer whale conservation with @exeter.ac.uk @whaleresearch.bsky.social @seadocsociety.bsky.social People from underrepresented groups in marine science encouraged to apply. Deadline 19Dec www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

Social relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*? In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts. tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7

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...

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life? Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social) Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf... Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

Pleasure and honour to have the opportunity to discuss some of the work we have been doing on over the last few years. Thanks to @behaviour2025.bsky.social for the invite (and great conference), @asab.org for the funding and everyone who turned up to listen at 9am on day 5.

Animal Behaviour from Exeter and Bristol, plus some of our alumni, went to @behaviour2025.bsky.social in Kolkata and had mountains of rice. @crab-exeter.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social

It was a real pleasure to have accidently been involved in Joe Wilde's (not here) paper published last week: doi.org/10.1098/rspb... It has terrifying Bayesian Hidden Markov Models, important insights about dynamic sexual signalling, and a robot crab called "Wavey Dave"- what's not to love?

BEHAVIOR IS THE WAY

🐒🕸️ New preprint! Confused about how to model animal social networks? ASNA can be confusing—but also full of opportunity. We break down 5 common misunderstandings in animal social network analysis and share solutions from behavioural ecology, anthro, stats, & network science. Hope it helps! A 🧵

I learned a lot working on this new paper with this group of network scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and behavioural ecologists. We're hoping it helps anyone who feels (understandably!) lost in the animal social networks weeds.

Loved listening to this discussion, and so pleased our research on the gorillas monitored by @savinggorillas.bsky.social, led by the fantastic Vic Martignac is resonating with so many!

‪Come join us at the @asab.org Winter Conference 2025: how sensory info affects behaviour. 15th & 16th Dec, abstracts due end Aug. More info and registration asabwinter.github.io/2025 Co-hosted with @jtroscianko.bsky.social and Innes Cuthill

Geology Murder xkcd.com/3112/

Our #study finds that #male #dominance isn't the norm among #primates, and starts to unravel what shapes flexibility in intersexual power paper (OA) https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500405122 press release https://www.mpg.de/24986976/0630-evan-beyond-the-alpha-male-150495-x?c=2249

Good Science xkcd.com/3101/

🚨Anyone want a job?🚨 We have two #postdocs up for grabs! 🧪 - cell developmental biology/#evodevo/#neuroevodevo - bioinformatics and molecular biology Both working on brain evolution in Heliconiini butterflies Details below! Please repost 🙏 1/n

Very excited to see our paper using historical data to infer toothed whale lifespans published this week in the Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society (@biojlinnsoc.bsky.social) doi.org/10.1093/biol... w. @darrencroft.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social @mialybkaer.bsky.social, Dan Franks

How good is it to get work with this lovely group of people in @crab-exeter.bsky.social every day? Answer: really really good!

it's published! finally! in this week's newsletter: my attempt to go through every single reason why I both dislike and distrust generative AI: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/11-things-... [free to read!]

Did you know about these tiny shiny ants (red arrow) living with wood ants (blue arrow)? They are Shining Guest Ants (Formicoxenus) and we have recently discovered that a wood ant nest can be home to several genetically distinct colonies of these 'guests'! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 1/5

Postdoc job alert! I'm hiring a 3-yr postdoc to work on our Social Modifiers of Primate Lifespans grant. Job info and how to apply below. Deadline June 1. Pls share! jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...