Berkay Arslan

Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

1/2 Ai, the chimpanzee who revolutionized science from Kyoto, has died at the age of 49.
She was the first chimpanzee to learn Arabic numerals.
Here you can see her in action in Tetsuro Matsuzawa's laboratory.

A graph comparing the number of neurons in the telencephalon of reptiles, birds, and two estimates for T. rex. Even the lowest of these estimates suggests the telencephalic neuron count of T. rex to be similar to that of a pygmy falcon or blackbird - several times more than the largest telencephalic neuron count of extant reptiles.

New paper out! 🧪
On reconstructing dinosaur cognition through contemporary cognitive science - a primer on the function of neurons and cognition, the role of extant animals, thermobiology, tools, arms races, foraging, and model-based cognition.
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

STbayes: An R package for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission A critical consequence of joining social groups is the possibility of social transmission of information related to novel behaviours or resources. Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) has emerg...

🎉🍾 very excited to see this out before 2025 ends doi.org/10.1111/2041... with Will Hoppitt in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. This paper is an overview of our new R package STbayes, a user-friendly toolkit for performing Bayesian NBDA analyses. @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

New paper out today w @dalmaijer.bsky.social @barbaraklump.bsky.social and @lucymaplin.bsky.social as part of the Phil Trans special issue doi.org/10.1098/rstb.... Over 2 years, we studied a population of cockatoos thought to be the source of the innovation of bin-opening.

Ella holds a fluffy and sleepy looking toutouwai chick during banding and fits an orange band to its leg

PhD scholarship alert! Are you interested in cognitive evolution? Do you want to know how development influences cognitive traits? Do you love hanging out with birds in the forest? If the answer to these questions is yes, please apply to work with us! 1/2 🧪
www.wgtn.ac.nz/scholarships...

Family friendly waiting room for participants

Family friendly waiting room, picture shows children's play area

Room for Research Assistants

Come join the Moral Minds Lab as a grad student at MSU! Brand-new lab equipped for child & adult testing, with motivated undergrads in a happy department. 🤩

Learn more: www.moralmindslab.com/join-our-tea...

(P.S. @tedmond.bsky.social is also taking a student!) @msupsychology.bsky.social

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 learning is critical to breastfeeding success: evidence from rural Namibian pastoralists AbstractBackground and objectives. Lactation is one of the defining features of mammals, yet many humans struggle with breastfeeding. One reason for this i

New paper out on the important role of social learning in breastfeeding! academic.oup.com/emph/article...

We’re looking for a motivated & curious researcher to join our team as a PhD candidate! You’ll work with Prof. Bridget Waller, Dr. Annika Bremhorst, & me at the Dog Cognition Centre, UoP.
Are you fascinated by the dog–human bond & dog-human communication? 🐶
Interested? Get in touch with me.

Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏

The Adaptive Relationships Framework illustrating how broad socioecological pressures shape the social solutions animals use to meet these challenges, and how these lead to social strategies and emergent structures that help them gain access to those solutions.

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

So excited that our first major empirical @themanybirds.bsky.social paper is now out in @plosbiology.org!
Leading this big team science project, with our excellent core leadership team, is a labour of love for me, delighted to see our hard work over the past 4 years has reached this milestone!

Left: Examples of novel objects used. Each black/white bar is 5 cm long. The objects ranged in size from a third to half the size of the subjects: (a) Southern cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, (b) Moluccan eclectus, Eclectus roratus, (c) Rüppell’s vulture, Gyps rueppelli, (d) gray-winged trumpeter, Psophia crepitans, (e) common waxbill, Estrilda astrild. Right: Secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) at Adlerwarte Berlebeck, Germany, interacting with a novel object. Image credit Kai Caspar.

Fear of novelty varies across species & individuals, impacting adaptability & survival. @themanybirds.bsky.social @drrmiller.bsky.social &co assess #neophobia in 1400 subjects from 136 #bird species, identifying phylogenetic influences & broad ecological drivers @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4haLEsN

Image showing Hobson Lab logo (with parakeets, a social network, and R code), two Monk Parakeets, and several individually-marked parakeets with the text "Now recruiting PhD students!!"

**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)

Please share!🙏
🚨 PhD Oportunity in Avian Behavioural Ecology in Spain
The BirdBond Project (MNCN & IREC) studies how pair bonds form, change & affect reproduction/survival in the spotless starling 🐦

Flyer for Open Methods in Comparative Cognition Research webinar

Looking forward to discussing open methods in comparative cognition, including the challenge of 'species fair' task design as part of the ManyManys webinar series 🤩

🐒🦜🐜🐕👶🦎🐐🐟

📅 September 12, 11:00 a.m. (ET) on Zoom

🔗Registration: airtable.com/app0bcw8jYPv...

#openscience #bigteamscience

🐒🕸️ 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 🧵

🎊 New paper out! In this @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social Forum, we (with @lucasmolleman.bsky.social and @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social) summarize how reward learning can lead to adaptive social learning. We also explore the broader consequences for cultural evolution:
www.cell.com/trends/cogni... 🚄

Congrats Elisa and Sofia on the first (of many) papers that derived from their @einsteinberlin.bsky.social price-winning project (paper available here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...)

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/...

🎊Fully funded PhD position on cooperative sustainability🌳

Are you curious about
🧒 developmental,
🌍 cross-cultural
🦧 species comparative
research on cooperative sustainability?

All info here or dm me with questions!
career2.successfactors.eu/sfcareer/job...
Please share! 🙏

Map of study site showing the islands of Coiba and Jicarón in Coiba National Park, Panama. On Coiba, both sexes of adult white-faced capuchins use stone tools, while on Jicarón only males have been observed to use tools.

Why do we see sex-biases in tool use in some primate groups but not in others? Read my 2nd PhD chapter, #openaccess in American Journal of Primatology
(doi.org/10.1002/ajp....) for an exploration of this question in an unique island system where white-faced capuchins use stone tools. A 🧵 (1/8)

Postdoctoral Fellowships call: 6 steps to prepare your application These tips and tricks will help you find the best host organisation and prepare a successful proposal.

📢 The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship call is now open!
Join our international expert team to explore minds across species.

We study:
🐒 Primates
🐕 Dogs
🐘 Elephants
🐴 Donkeys and horses

🔗 contact one of us to discuss your application: marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/post...
#MSCA

Chimpanzee drumming shows rhythmicity and subspecies variation Chimpanzees drum on the buttress roots of trees for communication. Eleuteri et al. investigate the presence of key elements of musical rhythm and of regional variation in chimpanzee buttress drumming....

TLDR: new paper headed up by @vestaeleuteri.bsky.social
& with an awesome team, incl @andrearavignani.bsky.social , showing chimps have rhythm in their drumming & differences b/w east & west drum rhythms!

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

But didn’t we know this already you ask? Well… 🧵1/16

My interview for *The Philosopher's Zone* podcast on Feminism and Primatology is out now!

I managed to scrounge up the courage to listen and I'm quite proud 🙃

You can listen to the ep via the ABC website or in the usual podcast places

#hps #sts #histsci #PhilSci #feminism #primatology

Wanted to share a handy little resource with you all (especially those in dev psych) — my lab & I made a "journal submission cheat sheet" that summarizes article types, word limits, & other requirements for the journals we typically submit to. Link below 👇🏼
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Early empathy development: Concern and comforting in 9- and 18-month-old infants from Uganda and the UK Empathy, the capacity to share and understand others’ emotional states, is important for navigating our social lives, yet its development in infancy remains poorly understood. Moreover, most research ...

🚨 New paper alert 🚨

Collaboration between @yorkpsychology.bsky.social and @durhamdcerc.bsky.social / @durhampsych.bsky.social

A longitudinal, cross cultual, study on infant development of concern & comforting:
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

@zannaclay.bsky.social

The flexibility of social learning and its conservation implications in mammals and beyond | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Conservation strategies seek to ensure that populations persist and are resilient to environmental change. As learning from others can shape the development of skills that help animals survive, reproduce and respond to changing conditions, understanding ...

The flexibility of social learning and its conservation implications in mammals & beyond.

New paper, led by Josh Arbon with fab collaborators Neil Jordan & @neeltjeboogert.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0136

@uniexecec.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @royalsocietypublishing.org