Maël Leroux

Last week, our own @berthetmelissa.bsky.social & @maelmleroux.bsky.social were at the @lasfdp.bsky.social 2025 conference.
First congress as official board members, and Mélissa presented their work on chimp vs. bonobos combinatoriality!

It's hard to overstate the impact Jane Goodall had on my life, both in terms of essentially birthing my field, but also her deeply, contagiously humanist (for want of a better word) spirit.

I've never been starstruck in my life except for the two occasions I met Jane, where I could barely talk.

A little update of the beginning of this academic year!
New papers, communication, public outreach:

@maelmleroux.bsky.social organised a symposium on animal linguistics at the @SLE2025 in Bordeaux with the @nccrlanguage.bsky.social, introduced by Philippe Schlenker

Le guépard a des choses à dire ! Aujourd’hui, direction la Namibie , à la rencontre du guépard ! 🐆 Maître de la vitesse, ce félin élancé fend la savane comme une flèche. Avec ses ...

Demain, on fait grève ! Pr vous distraire, vous pouvez écouter mon nouvel épisode du podcast Bêtes de science @futurasciences.bsky.social. J'y parle du guépard, l'occasion d'évoquer le @cheetah.org & les études de com' vocale de @maelmleroux.bsky.social : podcasts.futura-sciences.com/futura-betes...

L’émission d’hier à retrouver ici 👇🏻 merci @rfi.fr !
www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/...

Live today on @rfi.fr !

Spent a wonderful week in Aurich with Simon Townsend and Katie Slocombe to talk about the next step of the @agencerecherche.bsky.social project #APELANG!

Stay tuned ;)
Ps: meetings in the river = best meetings 🏊‍♂️

And we continue on this série with an interview live for CQFD, at the Swiss radio RTS 🙏
With Lucia Sillig!
Thanks for this great experience!

CQFD - rts.ch www.rts.ch/emissions/cq...

First were @maelmleroux.bsky.social & @berthetmelissa.bsky.social talking about @edi-efp.bsky.social for the pre-conference workshop!

We had @maelmleroux.bsky.social presenting his work on chimpanzee compositionality.

Super happy to share a paper Catia Correia-Caeiro and Katja Liebal were kind enough to invite me on!

An extension of the ChimpFACS for bonobos ❤️

With lots of people involved!

peerj.com/articles/194...

La prochaine fois qu’on se voit ;)
Tu me diras ce que tu en penses!

The original paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

No kidding… such an important message to be heard

Peer review harassment is making early career researchers and minorities leave academia.
👉 Check my last article based on Farid Saleh's work with Raoul Ganty's drawings for @unil.bsky.social

It's out! 🎉
Together with @maelmleroux.bsky.social , @chimpsahoi.bsky.social, and S. Townsend, we wrote a chapter on methods for studying animal sequences.

Huge thanks to @limorraviv.bsky.social and @cedricboeckx.bsky.social for editing this amazing volume!

academic.oup.com/edited-volum...

Et découvrez un extrait du livre (comme par hasard, sur la syntaxe…) ici 👇🏻

theconversation.com/quand-les-an...

Today we were at the radio to talk about our new book with Alban Lemasson! The first of a long series we hope!

Merci pour le shout out! 🫰🏻
À écouter, l’émission de ce matin sur France Culture sur le “langage”, le “rythme” et la “musique” des chimpanzés 🙊

La culture animale : éthologie et linguistique <p>Dans Quand les animaux prennent la parole !, publié aux éditions Apogée, Alban Lemasson et Maël Leroux nous parlent du langage animal, bien plus complexe que ce que nous imaginions… […]</p>

It’s out! Co-écrit avec Alban Lemasson: Quand les animaux prennent la parole ! Un livre grand public sur la communication animale et l’évolution du langage. En vente partout, éditions Apogée:
www.editions-apogee.com/espace-des-s...

A. Bensoussan en parle mieux que moi:
unidivers.fr/la-culture-a...

Only two weeks left to apply!

Come and join me, Alban Lemasson, Katie Slocombe and Simon Townsend!

And spread the word to whoever might be interested!

@efp2024.bsky.social @lasfdp.bsky.social @ips-primatenews.bsky.social

This new #RSOS paper tested the ability of #bonobos to process 'non-adjacent dependencies'. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @maelmleroux.bsky.social @chimpsahoi.bsky.social‬

April update of the labs activities - a 🧵
New paper documenting the absence of non adjacent dependency processing in bonobos, including Kanzi!

Nouveau papier sur l'absence de détection de dépendances syntaxiques chez les bonobos : une experience de grammaire artificielle
doi.org/10.1098/rsos...
1/4

New paper hot off the press! 🚨

Non adjacent dependency processing (or lack thereof) in bonobos.

A special one, as Kanzi, who participated in the study, passed away a few weeks ago 😢

doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Extensive compositionality in the vocal system of bonobos Compositionality, the capacity to combine meaningful elements into larger meaningful structures, is a hallmark of human language. Compositionality can be trivial (the combination’s meaning is the sum ...

Game changing study in @science.org by @berthetmelissa.bsky.social and co.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

2 new jobs!

1 enseignant.e à temps complet, pour un CDD de 1 an renouvelable(date limite le 2 mai)
univ-rennes.nous-recrutons.fr/poste/qyy7js...

1 enseignant.e-chercheur.e, contrat ATER (date limite le 22 avril)
www.univ-rennes.fr/sites/www.un...
www.univ-rennes.fr/recrutement-...

Could be good to know 😅 net salary is 2k/month, subject to variations depending on previous experience

@asab.org @ips-primatenews.bsky.social @efp2024.bsky.social @nccrlanguage.bsky.social @kirstyegraham.bsky.social

Ping @kathelijnekoops.bsky.social @nakedprimate.bsky.social @berthetmelissa.bsky.social