🚨Not one, but two papers now out on response inhibition (also called motoric self-regulation or inhibitory control in the field of animal cognition). Many studies find no link between individual performance on different tasks supposedly measuring response inhibition. 1/6

Happy to share that our work on direct & indirect social effects in producer-scrounger behaviours was recently published in JEB: academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-... @roriwijnhorst.bsky.social @dingemanselab.bsky.social @ali--wilson.bsky.social

Hot off the press 🐣 Do birds have any idea of what their eggs look like? Contrary to our expectations, we show that barn swallows don't, nor do they learn it over time. Yet that doesn't stop them from successfully ejecting foreign eggs! 🔗 Read more here: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... #OpenAccess

Have you ever wondered how animals were using affective states to cope with our activities? Here's our NEW PAPER (and my first) that tells you everything you need to know and how much should we feel concerned by the consequences of our activities besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

There is still some time to submit for our Special Collection on social cognition and anthropogenic environments! We are looking forward to hear from you! link.springer.com/collections/... Please do get in touch if you have any questions. #openaccess #socialcognition

New paper out! Early-life social instability increases aggression in chickens, but does not affect response inhibition 🐤 We discuss what this means for developmental links between social environments, cognition, and social behaviour, highlighting strong context dependence Full text: rdcu.be/eYOzC

✨New paper✨ How do juvenile ravens find social groups? We describe how juvenile common ravens, who have left their natal territories seeking to join non-breeder flocks, use space with respect to other birds, and discuss what this means for social integration. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

🎉 Very excited to share that our review on the impact of urbanization on animal social behaviour is out now in Biological Reviews! We synthesize evidence across taxa to understand how city life reshapes social systems 🏙️🐦🐒🦎🦝🐟 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @lizabeldm.bsky.social

📢 Our new article entitled “With or without you: common marmoset, Callithrix jacchus, personality expression is mediated by social setting” has just come out *open access* in #AnimalBehaviourJournal! ✨ 🥰🥳🐒 @asab.org doi.org/10.1016/j.an... A thread. 😊

1/3 Cooperative hunting in ravens Brown-necked ravens (C. ruficollis) work together to prevent lizards (U. aegyptia) from entering and blocking their burrow by inflating their bodies using their pointed tails to obstruct the entrance. (paper; 2010) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

"Unsung Songbirds: Advances in the Study of Corvid Communication" - a new review paper (preprint) https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/10600/ Corvids are amazing, so I'm v pleased to be a small part of this review led by Claudia Wascher and Valerie Dufour. #corvids #bioacoustics

Delighted to be part of this very collaborative venture: The Cooperative-Breeding Database (Co-BreeD), now live: doi.org/10.1111/1365... Contains data from 450+ populations of 320+ species (and is expandable). Thanks @benmocha.bsky.social @maikewoith.bsky.social for leading. @co-breed.bsky.social

Excited to announce that Eli Garcia-Pelegrin and I are co-editing a special collection for Animal Cognition on "Social Cognition in a Human World". Do you study how urbanization, pollution, heat stress, fragmentation, ... affects cognition? We want to hear from you! link.springer.com/collections/...

🧪 Incredible research reveals how greater noctule bats seek out, capture, and eat songbirds--all on the wing. (Also, my first story for @sciencenews.bsky.social!) 🦇🪶☠️ www.sciencenews.org/article/bats...

Visit our website and learn more about the @behavecol.bsky.social conference venue, host city and schedule! www.isbe2026.com

New @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social paper out today in @royalsociety.org Biology Letters. We found adult jackdaws can learn to tolerate usually bullied or ignored juveniles when they provided information about a new foraging resource. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

„behavioral flexibility, while helpful in allowing birds to adapt to new environments, is not the primary facilitator for range expansion“ https://news.ucsb.edu/2025/021980/both-flexibility-and-persistence-make-some-birds-successful-human-made-environments #thegrackleproject

New paper out! To Peck or Not To Peck: The influence of early-life social environment on response inhibition and impulsive aggression in Japanese quails royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Late to the party but the last paper of my PhD was published earlier this year! Pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) and Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) can discriminate between pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics, but not between heterospecifics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Congratulations @meganjthompson.bsky.social Another great paper!

In our new paper we discuss the coevolution of cognition and sociality (link: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...). It was a pleasure to work on this project with Andoni Sergiou, @josharbon.bsky.social, @inesfuertbauer.bsky.social, @shoalgroup.bsky.social, and @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social!

Selection Shapes Diverse Animal Minds: our special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org Phil Trans B on the diverse evolutionary processes underlying cognitive evolution is out today. Thanks to all our contributors! royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Happy to share our new paper introducing the Animal Culture Database in Scientific Data: We’re putting together a resource consolidating primary research on cultural behaviors in wild animal populations and how they’re affected by human activity (1/5) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Working with @wildcognition.bsky.social on this paper was so much fun: drawing from our research with mammals (primates & hyenas) we discuss to what extent the urban niche poses novel cognitive challenges or whether they are exapted to exploit urban resources link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Jackdaws' flexible behaviour helps them live alongside people, but sometimes they do some odd things! This guy decided a fork would make good nest material, but later changed his mind and chucked it out again. @uniexecec.bsky.social

For these bats, eavesdropping is a valuable learnt skill www.nature.com/artic...

New from #TheGrackleProject: "using multiple different methods for measuring boldness and exploration...our findings improve our understanding of the traits that are linked with flexibility in a highly adaptable species" […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Surely you have heard of/ used novel object paradigms to assess animal personality? In this paper we validate exploration behavior through a battery of stimuli in both social and individual conditions and across a longer period of time. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

ISBE26-the 20th International Society for Behavioral Ecology Conference will take place in Turin, Italy, from 20-24th of July 2026. We invite you to join us to enjoy a 5-day meeting rich in top-notch science and ample networking opportunities, in our beautiful city. Website out soon! #ISBE26

New toutouwai paper out today, led by Dr Tas Vámos! Individual toutouwai have specific preferences for where they cache prey - turns out birds that prefer spreading their caches widely also have more accurate spatial memory performance! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

🦅🧠 Bird Cognition 🧠🦅 Anyone who studies or is just fascinated by how birds perceive, learn, remember and solve problems 🐦 Let's all meet in this cool new #starterpack 🤩 Let me know if you want to join in too 🦜🦤🦉🦆🐣🪺🪶🧪 🔗 go.bsky.app/V2K7HQM #Ornithology #Birds #AnimalBehaviour

I am excited to announce that @neeltjeboogert.bsky.social and I are co-editing a special collection in the journal Animal Cognition on "Cognition in the Wild". Submissions are due by June 15. We are excited to see the amazing work you have been doing! link.springer.com/collections/...

'Evolutionary drivers of caching behaviour in corvids', new paper by @coloeus.bsky.social in collaboration with @babeheim.bsky.social. We identify caching strategies in 63 species from 16 genera (out of 128 corvid species and 22 genera) #animalcognition #corvids link.springer.com/article/10.1...

My first experience with @pci-regreports.bsky.social as one of the authors has been accepted: rr.peercommunityin.org/PCIRegistere... We investigated whether DnD as a tabletop role-playing game can mitigate social anxiety and problematic gaming patterns in online gamers Preprint: osf.io/htbwa

Vocal communication in corvids: a systematic review. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... In our new paper we review 130 papers and summarise empirical evidence for socioecological factors affecting vocal communication, as well as evidence for vocal learning in different corvid species.

The first of firsts is out! 😁🥳 From my PhD project on object play in wild ravens: here we validated findings from captivity and propose that object play in ravens likely serves dual functions - exploration of the physical as well as social environment! Link to paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Sex predicts response to novelty and problem-solving in a wild bird with female-biased sexual dimorphism | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences https://bit.ly/4gMFu0J #CompCogPapers @JuliaLSelf @ConnorTLambert

Our latest paper, where we showed how a lactobacillus gut microbe can benefit wild birds, was featured in @forbes.com. Thanks for the article @grrlscientist.bsky.social. @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social @biouea.bsky.social @ucc.bsky.social @apcmicrobiomeirel.bsky.social doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

I'm so happy to announce that my beautiful & charismatic jays have been published 🐤New research on #cognition in Plush-crested jays, a corvid member. Thanks to my co-authors and #AnimalCognitionJournal link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1/4 Intelligence without tool-using capabilities There has been much debate about whether tool use in nature is the result of advanced general cognition or whether it is due to particular adaptations. (paper) https://buff.ly/4f1M6XP by @jimeloism.bsky.social

I met this gentle giant puppy on the streets of Greece, and I am looking for the best home for him 🐾🏡. He loves cuddles, humans, cats, and dogs, and he recently survived a poisoned bait. I am willing to travel with him anywhere in Europe where he will be adopted. Please share 🙏

I made a starter pack for animal behaviour researchers / ethologists! please share and feel free to self-nominate or suggest others to be added as this is very much still a work in progress and not an exhaustive list 🌍🧪😊 #SciSky #BioSky #AnimalBehaviour #AnimalBehavior #Ethology go.bsky.app/Tr8VZpV

Still finding it hard to reconnect with everyone from Twitter (X) so here’s an attempt at finding all animal behaviourists, ethologists, behavioural ecologists etc, working with animal behaviour. Just pop a comment and I’ll add you to the list - let’s reconnect 😃 #appliedethology go.bsky.app/8oJ3A8E

Motivated by all these other animal-centric starter packs to fill in another niche: comparative cognition! go.bsky.app/5yu5SDr Let me know if you want to be added, or know someone who ought to be in the pack. Would be great to have representation from loads of species and places.

I haven't seen any starter packs made for behavioral ecology yet, so I decided to create one! If you are a behavioral ecologist (any career stage), please reply so I can add you to the list so we can more easily find each other. go.bsky.app/9mAuB6x

New paper with @gerrycarter.bsky.social just in time for Halloween! Vampire bats' first impressions of each other don't predict the formation of long-term relationships doi.org/10.1111/nyas...

#BOU2024 #Sech2 In this project, I’m looking at the effect of a high-fat high-sugar diet on the gut microbiota (GM) of young pigeons (as a pathway influencing cognition). By manipulating the diet in early-life (HFHS vs control) we found flexible responses to diet, and long-term effects of HFHS diets

Amanda Rodewald from @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social is delivering #BOU2024 #AlfredNewtonLecture about the processes that shape urban birds. Years of research showed striking differences in bird communities as landscapes urbanised & many assume it's due to the high numbers of predators in cities but..