New paper! We found that intensifying market integration in Rep. Congo does not uniformly shape BaYaka and Bantu adolescent behaviour and consumption, and that adolescents may be contributing to shifts in norms regarding the sharing of money. rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Super proud to have hosted at @aiasdk.bsky.social an excellent group of researchers to think through all things play, childhood, and innovation. I'll be buzzing about this for a while!

The Nausicaä print that kicked off my monthly riso print thing, before I had the foresight to add a border. Maybe I’ll have to revisit it for a future month, but in the mean time I’ve got something else more fall-themed in the works for this month instead

Happy to be back at AIAS in Aarhus, Denmark to discuss, write and innovate new ideas about Object Play, Tool Use and Innovation with awesome researchers from very different fields. Feeling inspired!!

#PRIMATES Studying young chimpanzees in Uganda, Canadian anthropologist @iuliabadescu.bsky.social finds that children have a "repertoire of skills that adults can pick up on, and that's how culture evolves." @nature.com nouvelles.umontreal.ca/en/article/2...

#xenovember begins! Kicking it off with a more or less traditional ‘big Chap’ and am already bored bwahahah. So it’s clearly time to get weird. #darkart #alien

Being a grown ass parent is realizing that the best part of Halloween is right after your sweet innocent child falls asleep and you raid their candy loot like a dirty dog.🍬🎃

Throwback to this Ghanaian hit 🇬🇭 youtu.be/FRPCBg1N4Yo?...

Ethnology-primatology parallel for kinship is illuminating. Even in primates, kin ties are learned and don't overlap perfectly with genetics. In colobus a while ago, I found that genetic relatedness btwn individuals did not predict a kin-biased behavior, but the lived, learned kin relationships did!

QRP your dark art 🖤

When you're trying to get motivated to work amidst Canada-US trade issues and tariff escalations: youtu.be/nd98mR4z900?...

A call for mercy: Ban Wild-Caught Primate Trade Stop the import of wild primates for the research and testing industries. Please sign & share action.humaneworld.org/page/179952/...

Palpitation

#WyrdWednesday Arianrhod, daughter of Dôn, mistress of the fortress of Caer Arianrhod... Often portrayed as a wicked witch who thrice cursed her own son. More fairly, perhaps, viewed as a strong, defiant woman, who refused to bow in a world controlled by the men around her. Art by Margaret Jones.

"We can trace complex behaviors like nuptial gift-giving in flies back to their genetic roots to understand how evolution can create entirely new behavioral strategies that are very different from even closely related species." www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

For what seems like forever, I've wanted to know what benefits we get from our friends - or in other words, why these relationships evolved. tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7

the IUCN have passed the Longevity Conservation motion put forward to them by @kellerfish.bsky.social and @pili-scotland.bsky.social and based on the paper we wrote on the value of older individuals in animal societies. www.cdu.edu.au/news/global-...

People on twitter are losing their minds over this, including several scientists who I have to assume have either brain poisoned themselves or were always like this. People don't always cite what's best; they cite what they know & researchers from historically excluded communities get the short end.

#overthegardenwall #fanart And that’s a rock fact! #art #artist #wirt #gregory #illustration #halloween #otgw #otgwfanart

Excited to share our new paper on the #social #structure of Rwenzori #colobus multi-male, multi-female core units! We found 3 different patterns but close #male #relationships in all that were long lasting! Paper is behind a paywall but contact us if you want a pdf. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I know @teichroeb-lab.bsky.social would appreciate these. I think someone also needs to make primatology versions of costumes 😂

Mt. Kilimanjaro Guerezas (Colobus caudatus) are found at the Kenya-Tanzania border in montane forests that include Mt. Kilimanjaro and Arusha National Parks. They occupy a severely fragmented geographic range. Threatened by habitat loss, fragmentation, and human population expansion. Vulnerable.

Young chimps play weird with tools and other objects & this can lead to innovation! Moss sponging, doll play, leaf clipping to ask for carrying. If copied and retained, rare kid innovations can contribute to cultural complexity 🧪🔬🐵 My fav article I've ever worked on: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

March of the Pumpkinheads, day 18: now with color!

It’s ok to just bee.

"When can woman best represent man?": Donna Haraway asks before launching into wonderful discussion of Jane Goodall's role in context of 1960s African decolonization & role of media in building the iconic image of Woman in Primatology: White, Virginal, Independent, Lonely. youtu.be/f618pGztXiY?...

A critical remembrance of Jane Goodall for the latest issue of @thecontinent.org. Open to comments and feedback www.thecontinent.org/_files/ugd/2...

Five years post height of pandemic education, this year’s undergrads are so good!! They’re thoughtful, present, involved, they ask good questions (oh so many questions😛). Might we be seeing a new generation of young ppl who really appreciate in-class university learning? 🎉

Of course women don't like the Cybertruck. Women only want one thing, and it's the Immolator pattern armoured assault transport.

Raptorial Headache

Things in Madagascar are escalating.

the plan? reverse impostor syndrome myself through seasonal mania

We have reached peak Science

Dolores oc commission for Deven tysm ☀️

Whenever I see geese flying in autumn, my inner child immediately imagines a tiny mischievous boy riding one of the geese during their migration… Just like in the Swedish cartoon The Adventures of Nils Holgersson, which I was super into as a nerdy little European child. 🪿👦🏼

pumpkin patch #art (wallpapers below!)

I've said it many times: cooperative breeders are the coolest mammals. I'm partial to meerkats, but these eusocial naked mole rats are so strange and delightful!

Study to help explain very rare and violent (horrifying for me to see) intracommunity split among Ngogo chimpanzees. Changes in female # and residence patterns affected male grooming networks, which likely negatively affected male affiliative bonds. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

For us primatologists studying infanticide: here's a novel investigation in capuchins of the Bruce effect (i.e., spontaneous miscarriage in response to new adult male). No evidence of Bruce effect despite capuchins being a good candidate species. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is cool. Adoption of orphaned youngsters in chimps is relatively well documented, but I had not read or heard about this yet in orangs. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Upon further reflection, what I enjoy here is that a stark point is made by authors, within the absence or silence of what’s not being said. The evolutionary biologist’s disciplinary bias flags the absence of the usual paradigm, which is the actual argument made. Brilliant, imo.

This is great for many reasons (summary of feminism in primatology, unique discussion on sex/gender) but what I like most is authors' description of macaques studied. They ignore (assume deliberately) kin selection + socioecology in favor of semi sociocultural approach. www.jstor.org/stable/jj.13...

someone told me they take Tylenol to replenish their autism the way one grabs blue globes to replenish their mana and I can’t stop smirking

I U N M O O R E D I Unmoored — a fractured self adrift. Ghosts dissolve into pale washes, while violent slashes of crimson and black tear across the canvas. A portrait of dissociation, of consciousness slipping free, unanchored. - The Asylum Art - Art and words by Yves #blueskyart #cptsd #Art

Pseudo-penis who?? Elongated clitorises are out (sorry spider monkeys), male genitalia resembling vaginas are in! Yet another reason why colobus are the coolest primates. Also, Tom Struhsaker is continuing to publishing iconic articles. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

hello friends, it's STFU Friday and this is your reminder that no one can make you do anything. they CAN maybe make you WISH that you HAD done something, but...no one can MAKE you do ANYTHING, okay? ok be safe ILY 🫶🏻

Every year, when I'm about to teach the most important foundational topic of my undergrad courses, which is Evolution by Natural Selection, I catch myself thinking: "I wish natural selection was more like sexual selection"... in that I wish it were more fun and sexy.

Unhinged meal time in Monster Hunter Wilds

I had a dream I was counting suckling rates and mouth movements of chimp infants while they nursed. This means I need to get back to writing about the micro-structure of suckling and lactational physiology in wild primates... possibly the most niche research paper but so f'ing interesting (to me)!!

Hot topic for 'parents with neurodivergent kids' is PDA (Pervasive Drive for Autonomy) = Kids who need control of their time, who find even banal demands from authority ppl overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. So helpful to learn about, even when kid isn't PDA. www.pdasociety.org.uk/what-helps-g...