Kuşların değerini biliyor muyuz? sarkac.org/2026/02/kusl... @pinarea.bsky.social tarafından.

An amazing new species of Cordyceps-mimicking spider has just been described from the Ecuadorian Amazon - Taczanowskia waska www.mapress.com/zt/article/v...

New paper led by @alperyelimlies.bsky.social with @caglaonsal.bsky.social where we examine the repeatability of aggression in urban and rural chaffinches. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

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...

The Birdsong Lab is recruiting graduate students to study vocal communication in tropical birds. The deadline to apply is less than a week away! #birds #birdsong #ornithology #animalbehavior #BirdsCanada #AcademicSky #SciComm

🚨 New paper alert! "Honestly exaggerated: howler monkey roars are reliable signals of body size and behaviourally relevant to listeners" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... We show that formants advertise body size and mediate social interactions in black and gold howler monkeys.

Sneak peek at the opening line of my next grant application:

MAJOR NEWS! We just launched an awesome new tool! The illustrated Birds of the World Phylogeny Explorer lets users trace any bird’s lineage, compare species relationships, and explore major evolutionary milestones with a click of a button. SHARE and EXPLORE! birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/phy...

📣 Annual Meeting of the Ethologische Gesellschaft 2026 🎤 Keynote: Thomas Bugnyar 🐦‍⬛ Leading researcher on ravens and cognition, Professor of Behavioral & Cognitive Biology @univie.ac.at 📍 Grünau | 📅 Feb 18–21, 2026 Four days of science and exchange—where ethology made history. Picture: A. Monteanu

a recent article on the cute little bundles of anger that also features our research www.countryliving.com/uk/wildlife/... our paper can be found here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

SPAR supermarkets are promoting a broom and stick set in Austria with Veronika. It reads: “Einstein among the cows: Spar sells Vroni's back scratcher set” Vroni is the diminutive form of Veronika, of course. Thanks to Özge Nasa for the tip!

Charley Harper, "Darwin's Finches", from "The Giant Golden Book of Biology", 1961

Update on some of our decades long cowbird research in @audubon.org magazine: www.audubon.org/magazine/got...

‘Dear Enemies’ Are Made When A Song Sparrow Learns To Sing www.forbes.com/sites/rebecc...

The Birdsong Lab is recruiting graduate students! Links in the comments. Please repost!

📣 Annual Meeting of the @ethoges.bsky.social 2026 🗓️ 18–21 Feb 2026 | 📍 Almtal, Austria Join us in beautiful Grünau im Almtal for inspiring talks and lively discussions! ⚠️ Registration closes this week! 👉 univie.eventsair.com/etho26-dkcog... @univie.ac.at

✨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...

Here a cute video abstract too: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvFw...

🚨20 #postdoc positions of 4 years at @univie.ac.at for female researchers in #STEM and #Economics Application period: January 7 - March 2, 2026 for a start in October 2026. More infos about the call and participating departments and labs here: careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e...

🆕 New paper: How young #ravens find their place in society Using #GPSbiologging, we show that juvenile ravens already display social integration before joining nonbreeder flocks. Space use depends on age, rearing background, and familiarity. @univie.ac.at Picture: M. Klymenko

Borb from yesterday’s walk in Vienna. ❄️🐦 #birds

🎉 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

Nice article on Floreana recovery after pest eradication, including news on Darwin’s Finches songs by colleagues of the @klf-univienna.bsky.social bbc.com/future/artic...

As an early Christmas gift, @journal-evo.bsky.social accepted @kenstoyama.bsky.social and my paper on macroevolutionary patterns of ornament evolution in birds of paradise! 🦚 Check it out here: academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Previously we showed that female budgerigars like to listen to rhythm 🎵 just like we humans do. In a new study, we showed that male budgerigar courtship song actually has similar rhythmic properties to human music. doi.org/10.1111/nyas...

Looking for a Postdoc position and have a background in bioacoustics and animal cognition? Interested in whether other animals might have something akin to language? Join our team: www.oeaw.ac.at/en/oeaw-home...

I wrote a piece on LLMs, citation metrics, and the institution of science. It's been up for a couple of days, but it is officially "out" now.

What are the causes & consequences of behavioural diversity loss in a changing world? And how do we harness this knowledge for conservation? New open access paper led by @odedberger-tal.bsky.social with David Saltz and @mrmic1.bsky.social #BobWongLab royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

original songs

Song length competence: evidence for a new fitness indicator in birdsong https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.05.692489v1

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students. I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

A visual summary of Peter and Juley's new open access paper in Ibis. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Looking for a PhD at the intersection of animal cognition, acoustics & machine learning? We offer 3 PhD projects at the Acoustics Research Institute (Vienna) and IT:U Linz: Info: it-u.at/en/research/... Apply: career.it-u.at/en/Job/73280 Deadline: Jan 31, 2026 | Start: Mar 2026

New paper led by Lauren Common on the “seet” alarm calls of superb fairy-wrens is out today: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... Interestingly, this is the second paper this week on these previously undescribed calls (see below)! I think the two studies complement each other really well.

🔊Negative valence overrides identity information in ungulate vocalisations. Happy to share new work by @ebriefer.bsky.social Romain Lefèvre & myself authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Origins of language, one of humanity’s most distinctive traits, may be best explained as a unique convergence of multiple capacities each with its own evolutionary history, involving intertwined roles of biology & culture. This framing can expand research horizons. A 🧵 on our @science.org paper.🧪1/n

📢NEW paper out NOW in @asab.org Animal Behaviour on how a novel #call changes subsequent responses to #alarms in #fairywrens 🌟CONGRATULATIONS #NatalieTegtman on #first paper from #PhD 👥With #RobMagrath @bristolbiosci.bsky.social #animalcommunication #birds #fieldwork #ECR doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

The goal was a scientifically accurate but aesthetically appealing cover, capturing the fundamentally conservative nature of the vertebrate brain over millions of years of evolution. The brains by themselves weren't enough, so I decided little figures of the animals to clarify this message.

I am very proud of the artwork on the cover of our recent Phil Trans issue on consciousness. It is based on watercolor paintings and ink drawings on paper I did myself, based on published diagrams by recognized experts on comparative brain anatomy (detailed in the caption which it seems no one read)

📢 #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

Good guardian, bad parent: tradeoffs between territory defense and parental care in Darwin's finches #Bird #TradeOff #PlaybackExperiment doi.org/10.1093/behe...

Sweet www.cell.com/current-biol...

New paper, led by Vlad Demartsev: Alerting components in animal vocalization www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Still scratching my head about whether female #magnificentriflebirds display back at males or if all those copulations I’ve filmed actually involve immature males

new preprint led by @alperyelimlies.bsky.social: Flexibility of territorial aggression in urban and rural Chaffinches www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #ornithology

New #PhD ad alert! Interested in wild #bee #cognition and #brains in different #bumblebees? Want to live in #Newcastle and the beautiful north-east of England? Check out this project with me, @lenariab.bsky.social and Sarah Scott. Contact me for further information. iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...

Researchers gave female canaries testosterone, which causes them to sing. Two-photon in vivo imaging reveals that songs emerge due to changes in brain cell function rather than by increasing the size of a key brain region, as was once thought. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/pn1750XhFL5

#CrowCoG is hiring🚨MULTIPLE PAID RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITIONS 🚨for our 2026 field season (May - Sep)! Field and aviary-based positions - come help us study the remarkable tool-making New Caledonian crows. Apply here: bit.ly/3WlxxHE