Mylène Dutour

Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs The selective revision of beliefs in light of new evidence has been considered one of the hallmarks of human-level rationality. However, tests of this ability in other species are lacking. We examined...

Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵

Yay congrats @pebblemouse.bsky.social! An exciting project in an amazing place with amazing people!

🌱[Préannonce] L’ANR s’associe au lancement en décembre de l’appel à projets AGROECOLOGY3, édition 2027 "Favoriser la diversité génétique des cultures et des animaux d’élevage et renforcer les capacités des agriculteurs à s’engager dans la transition agroécologique".
➡ anr.fr/fr/detail/ca...

Le bio, est-il vraiment le même partout dans le monde ? Derrière cette étiquette rassurante se cachent des normes très différentes selon les pays.

Vidéo basée sur un article de Marie Asma Ben-Othmen, UniLaSalle

#Bio #ConsommationResponsable #Alimentation

An updated estimate of the number of birds killed by outdoor cats in Canada - Avian Conservation and Ecology Domestic cats, Felis catus, can be found almost everywhere in the world and estimating their impact on wildlife, including birds, requires the most up-to-date information. There are an estimated 9.3 million pet cats in Canada, 30–60% of which are given unrestricted access to the outdoors. With the best available data in 2013, cats were estimated to kill between 105–348 million birds per year in Canada, making them the leading measurable cause of bird mortality in the country. However, a decade later, research on outdoor cats and their predation of birds has increased considerably, providing an opportunity to revisit this mortality estimate. Using recent data on predation rates and cat abundance, we estimated that cats kill between 19 and 197 million birds per year in Canada, 71% lower than the earlier estimate. This does not mean that cat populations or predation rates on birds have declined since the previous estimate. Rather, we suggest that the difference can be primarily attributed to lower outdoor cat abundance estimated from field surveys compared to previously used cat ownership surveys and media reports of shelter intake data. Although the estimated number of birds killed annually by cats is considerably lower than the previous estimate, outdoor cats remain a serious concern for native bird populations.

An updated estimate of the number of birds killed by outdoor cats in Canada | ace-eco.org/vol20/is... | Avian Conservation and Ecology | #ornithology 🪶

EARLY VIEW in IBIS

Using acoustic indices to detect interspecific bird interactions and behaviour | onlinelibrary.wiley....

Federica Rossetto, Nicolas Mathevon, Paola Laiolo | #ornithology 🪶

Call for Submissions for the Frans de Waal PhD Dissertation prize 2026

📣 Honouring Frans de Waal’s spirit of curiosity & empathy 🧠🐒
The Frans de Waal PhD Dissertation Prize 2026 is now open for submissions. Celebrating #Primatology, #Ethology & the evolution of social behaviour.
🏆 Announced at #CBEN2026 (Leiden, Apr 14)
⏰ Apply by Jan 15, 2026!
@ehbea2026.bsky.social

Nice piece from @hollyasmith.bsky.social on this from @thecowbirdlab.bsky.social et al. in @natecoevo.nature.com

🐦 Did learned vocal signals evolve from innate?
🐦 Authors study this in 21 avian hosts of brood parasites

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#prattle 💬
#bioacoustics

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a 14 day old great tit nestling, ringed for individual identification

Figure from the paper showing that extreme climatic events interact with ambient climatic conditions and breeding timing within a season, in a developmental stage-specific manner, to influence nestling growth in great tits

New preprint! 🪶

We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️

With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia Neophobia (the aversive response to novelty) varies considerably across species and individuals, and can impact adaptability and survival. This study assesses neophobia in 1400 subjects from 136 bird ...

🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology:
“A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.”
Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍
🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
@themanybirds.bsky.social

Investigating the relationship between heat-mediated cognitive impairment and antipredator response in a wild bird | Royal Society Open Science Increasingly frequent heatwaves require animals to spend more time thermoregulating at the expense of other fitness-related behaviours. Emerging evidence also indicates that high temperatures can impa...

Our new paper is out! @camillasoravia.bsky.social leads this research, which looks into the relationship between heat- mediated cognitive impairment and the antipredator response in wild pied babblers. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Thank you so much @mandyridley.bsky.social! Loved being back in Perth and seeing you - always such a special place.

So good to present my research here - where I had the chance to do postdocs with the amazing @mandyridley.bsky.social and her incredible Western magpie research group! Such a special place

Numerical cognition in birds Nature Reviews Psychology - Birds demonstrate complex numerical abilities at levels similar to primates. In this Review, Regolin and colleagues describe the contribution of laboratory, field and...

Numerical cognition in birds | www.nature.com/artic... | Nature Reviews Psychology | #ornithology 🪶

The evolution of extreme sound frequencies in bird songs | doi.org/10.1093/evol... | Evolution | #ornithology 🪶

Thrilled to see our magpie research featured in "Why Do Birds Sing?" now out and recently highlighted in The Canberra Times!
Amazing to see how our work on female song and social complexity in magpies is resonating ❤️
@mandyridley.bsky.social @gblackburn.bsky.social

Really interesting study showing learning of tool use in carrion crows! www.cell.com/current-biol...

Stay tuned for a very exciting update coming shortly from the ManyBirds Project! Eeek!

Our new cognition paper is out, headed by @gblackburn.bsky.social, and one of the last chapters from her exceptional PhD thesis!

#Communiqué 🗞️ Dès l’école maternelle, les enseignants répondent moins favorablement aux prises de parole des enfants de milieux populaires, comparés à leurs camarades de classes moyennes et supérieures, et ce à compétences linguistiques égales. 🧒📚

👉 www.cnrs.fr/fr/presse/le...

Intentional Communication in Animals The evolutionary origins of human language are deeply intertwined with the ability to communicate intentionally. Grounded in frameworks from developme…

Our new chapter is out! 📢 Co-first-authored with @mawadafreville.bsky.social with attentive supervision of @chacanteloup.bsky.social🤗

How has intentionality been theorised in developmental psychology and primatology, and how is it studied in animal signals?🐒🦜👶 Take a look 👇 doi.org/10.1016/B978...

Excited to share that we have just been awarded a NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant to work on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins. We will soon advertise a 3 year post-doc to join the team - drop me an email if you might be interested! Pls share widely 🙏🏻

Social pairing in the absence of reproductive senescence in a socially monogamous songbird Older, more experienced individuals may make better mates than young, inexperienced individuals, but reproductive ability often declines in old ages. Mount

New paper from the lab by @jwelklin.bsky.social
In mountain chickadees, there is positive assortment by age in pairing, but such assortment appears due to pair longevity rather than active mate choice based on age.
academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

New paper out in the lab on collective gaze following in pigeons in iScience!

Coolest experimental design ever🤭

Baby-talk - a human superpower? - NCCR Evolving Language Humans from different cultures speak to their children using a form of speech known as "child-directed speech", or “baby talk”. Though to us, it may seem natural to communicate directly with our littl...

📰 Humans from different cultures talk to their children using “child-directed speech”, or “baby talk”. But according to new research, this characteristic is however far from prevalent in our closest relatives, the non-human great apes...

evolvinglanguage.ch/baby-talk-a-...

« ChatGPT rend con » ? Des chercheurs du MIT trollent les utilisateurs d'IA générative - Next Une étude (non relue par les pairs) analysant l’activité du cerveau lorsqu’on utilise l’IA générative est beaucoup citée actuellement sur les réseaux sociaux et dans les médias. Mais celle-ci a été mi...

« ChatGPT rend con » ? Des chercheurs du MIT trollent les utilisateurs d’IA générative

next.ink/189477/chatg...

Avec le regard de Martial Mermillod, enseignant-chercheur en sciences cognitives à l'Université de Grenoble

🔊 CALL FOR ABSTRACTS OPEN

#BOU2026 | Birds and people | 31 March - 2 April 2026 | University of Nottingham & Zoom & Bluesky

Check out the keynote lineup and submit your abstract now!

bou.org.uk/event/bir...

#ornithology

Western Australian Magpies alter the rate, but not the amplitude, of their territorial song in anthropogenic noise Anthropogenic noise is considered one of the most serious forms of pollution globally and has been shown to have negative effects on the distribution, behaviour, cognition and reproductive success of...

Another #PhD chapter out in the world! We investigate the impact of anthropogenic #noise on the territorial song of WA magpies 🔊🐦🔊
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@mandyridley.bsky.social @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social @dutourmylene.bsky.social

Western Australian Magpies alter the rate, but not the amplitude, of their territorial song in anthropogenic noise Anthropogenic noise is considered one of the most serious forms of pollution globally and has been shown to have negative effects on the distribution, behaviour, cognition and reproductive success of...

Our new paper, led by @gblackburn.bsky.social, finds a very sharp decline in the rate of carol calls (the main territorial call) given by magpies during anthropogenic noise, but no change in the amplitude. @dutourmylene.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Two paper just out from the #clevercockieproject!

@julia-penndorf.bsky.social reveals how cockies play politics when deciding who to aggress: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
&
@barbaraklump.bsky.social describes a new 'drinking innovation':
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...