Joan Silk

#GreatAdaptations Power and leverage are not always based on size.

Female mountain gorillas can outrank males twice their size...

...and exhibit priority of access to resources over these males

Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982225008723

Press release:
https://www.mpg.de/25119311/0730-evan-it-s-not-just-about-size-150495-x

A newer synthesis, 50 years after the publication of Sociobiology www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagaz...

Kind, supportive, and always engaged.

Jane's contributions, as founding editor of Human Nature and patron saint of biosocial perspectives on human behavior, have had an important impact on the scope and direction of evolutionary social science. She will be missed.

Not true. See House et al 2013. Choosing 1/1 means giving up one reward in order to provide reward to partner.

Comparative data rock. New MS leveraging grooming data on 11 species of papionin primates (baboons, geladas, mandrills, and mangabeys) across 13 sites.

Karen Kramer writes about the importance of women's food foraging and food processing.

#GreatAdaptations The benefits of social bonds for zebra females
brill.com/view/journal...

#GreatAdaptations So improbable it must have evolved.

This Jungle Plant Is a Good Landlord to Its Tenant Ants

#GreatAdaptations There are good landlords out there, but you might have to live in a jungle www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/s...

My mother (who turns 100 in July) says the secret to long life s not dying.

World's cutest baboons.

Honey, We Shrunk the Cod

#GreatAdaptations Humans have become the selective force for other species Honey, We Shrunk the Cod www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/s...

Social anxiety in macaques

Tibetan macaques show self-directed behaviors before facing difficult social situations. For example, when females plan to approach higher-ranking females, or when low-ranking males are plan to approach receptive females.

(paper) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Everyone needs a little Richard doll sitting on their shoulder, whispering "draw the DAG first"

Just in time for Father's Day. Lovely data on the positive impact that baboon fathers have on their daughters. (Even in a species that seems adapted for extreme mating effort.)

Maybe not now.

Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund

You like to think that when you retire, your place will be taken by scholars that are younger and smarter than you are who will add to the sum of human knowledge. May not now. www.science.org/content/arti...

#GreatAdaptations Friendship is a great adaptation

Awesome

Baboons Walk in Line for Friends, Not Safety Wild baboons organize their travel formations not to avoid predators or compete for food, but simply to stay close to their friends, according to new research that challenges decades of assumptions ab...

#GreatAdaptations Baboons walk the line. scienceblog.com/wildscience/...

If only I had 9 research lives...(I think I have already used two).

Interesting perspective on the breadth of children's moral concern --- and great to see the location of each study reported when results are described.

Oh, I am afraid it will get much darker.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1925

A fantastic new issue of Phil Trans on animal culture and conservation is just out. royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

And the course looks really interesting.

#GreatAdaptations Soon our only unique attribute will be scale of harm that we can do to the planet.

Tool use aids prey-fishing in a specialist predator of stingless bees | PNAS Tool use is widely reported across a broad range of the animal kingdom, yet comprehensive empirical tests of its function and evolutionary drivers ...

Tool use in insects: Assassin bugs apply resin to their forelegs before a stingless bee hunt. This makes the bees attack the bug in just the right position to be caught!

Videos will worth watching

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Flamingos Make Underwater Vortexes to Suck Up Prey

#GreatAdapations Curiosity + Data = Knowledge Flamingos Make Underwater Vortexes to Suck Up Prey www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/s...