How and why does cognition vary so greatly between individuals and species? In @natrevbiodiv.nature.com, we propose the "Predatory Intelligence Hypothesis" which posits that the cognitive challenges associated with predator–prey interactions drive a cognitive co-evolutionary arms race
rdcu.be/e5KIj
Join us for the second Wild Talks event of the year, hosted by @lucycooke.bsky.social, to celebrate the pioneering women who shaped ZSL's history, and those who continue to tackle conservation challenges today 🌍 Book your free ticket for 10th March now: www.zsl.org/news-and-eve...
05.02.2026 10:44 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1
🐠 I’m hosting a paid summer research internship at Oxford on how fish communicate to manage cooperation and conflict 🐠
It’s part of UNIQ+ which is open to UK undergraduates from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds.
ℹ️ More info & apply: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g...
⏰ Deadline: 18 Feb
The #BiologyLetters Early Career Researcher Competition is back for 2026! You must be an #ECR to enter and submit your paper by 31 March 2026 for the chance to win £1000. Two runners-up will also receive £500 each. Find out more: ow.ly/aCgx50UCo2H #EarlyCareerResearchers
12.01.2026 13:36 — 👍 9 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 0
🚨Roll up, roll up, fully-funded #PhD deadlines approaching...
6th Jan: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6
8th Jan: tinyurl.com/4jfy47pp
Social monitoring & manipulation
#meerkats #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork #long-termdata
@patrick-kennedy.bsky.social @ljnbrent.bsky.social
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social
🐬 And we are taking a ‘deeper dive’ into flow next year!
Thank you to Shivani Patel, my incredible undergrad students, and collaborators far and wide for making 2025 the year we levelled up this research.
🐀 We’ve been busy designing and programming new games…. tangible and digital.
🐒 We got overwhelmed by big data sets but started to learn how to cope with them.
🎙️ We’ve spoken on podcasts, to book authors, and at conferences.
We’ve had fun in the Bristol Psychology & Neuroscience Comparative Challenge Lab in 2025. 🧵
🎲 We’ve been zoning into games as tools to study the relationship between animal cognition and emotion. lnkd.in/euyDE3D3
🎮 We published research on time distortion during human flow state. lnkd.in/e-satPgt
I wouldn’t expect anything less Andy - you are an inspiration to me!
17.12.2025 09:12 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
🚨 Our new paper is out!! A call for CARE in animal behaviour: an holistic ethical research framework 🐾💚 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
12.12.2025 11:59 — 👍 22 🔁 13 💬 0 📌 0ASAB is coming to Bristol!!!
17.12.2025 09:08 — 👍 10 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A short but very sweet trip to Oxford to round off the year. Thanks to Beth Mortimer and colleagues for sharing their fascinating seismic sound work, which is a different flavour of bioacoustics for me. I’m taking photos of the gorgeous new building and the cube mics back to Bristol with me!!
17.12.2025 08:56 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
🌍📢 Postdoc alert | 3-yr starting early 2026
Please 🔁!
Understand how ecosystem stability is changing across space and through time using niche modelling, pinpoint at-risk species/regions, and build tools that drive conservation action🌿🧭📈
👉 tinyurl.com/2mafwru3
#Ecology #Jobs #Biodiversity
In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, “Life Finds a Way” but he was talking about evolution, not rapid climate change.
24.11.2025 18:21 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I don’t work with wildlife in situ much these days - I’ve been focussed on ex situ populations for many years. But today, I did reflect on a some human-baboon conflict work in Cape Town I was involved in, and how we haven’t seemed to get past the issue of how animals cope with our rubbish!
24.11.2025 18:21 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Just gave a lecture on how animals behaviouraly adapt (or not!) to human-induced rapid enviro. change. I really depressed myself & the class! Yes, cockatoos have learned to open bins and raccoons can thrive in cities, but urban adaptors are rare and animals shouldn’t need to adapt to our garbage.
24.11.2025 18:21 — 👍 12 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Shades of blue and red in a slice through an immuno stained brain showing some deliciously lovely looking mushroom body lobes - ripe for investigation during a funded PhD - and the central complex. Image credit: Dr Max Farnworth
🚨RA/PhD position available in evolutionary neurobiology 🚨
Working on a deep dive into circuit changes during mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies @camzoology.bsky.social
- employment benefits
- 4 years funding
- 1000% fun
Deadline: 14/1/2026
Details:
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...
Beyond criterion: cognitive flexibility in wild striated caracaras: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Cognition #Ecology
21.11.2025 11:00 — 👍 33 🔁 18 💬 0 📌 0
Meerkat pups in the Kalahari, South Africa
Rhesus macaques in Cayo Santiago
Dwarf mongoose staring at a camera, South Africa.
📢Two fully-funded #PhD opportunities to work with us:
Topic: Social monitoring & manipulation
UK-domiciled black-heritage scheme: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6
NERC DLTP: tinyurl.com/4jfy47pp
Cosupervisors: #PatrickKennedy @ljnbrent.bsky.social
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social
#bioacoustics #mammals #fieldwork
🚨Who wants to work with Kalahari meerkats? A MSc project with @mathildemartin.bsky.social at the University of Zurich.
#bioacoustics 🧪
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...
Fully funded #PhDposition in Comparative Cultural Psychology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social.
We will use touchscreen experiments & eyetracking to study mental simulations in nonhuman apes & human children across different cultures.
All info here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
Please share / apply!🙏
🐦 EcoBird is hiring a Postdoc in animal cognition!
Join us + @themanybirds.bsky.social to investigate innovation & problem-solving in birds.
📅 Start: as early as Jan 2026
🌍 Funded through UGent’s international mobility scheme
More info & how to apply ↓
www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...
UK publication day!
www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/chris...
The Durham cathedral
A male smoky rubyspot damselfly
Looking for a PhD opportunity? I'm hoping to recruit someone to my group at Durham University to work on a project combining fieldwork and labwork to study speciation in rubyspot damselflies: iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
Get in touch if you want to chat!
#PhD position!
Comparing #foraging and #cognition in #hummingbirds and #bumblebees
Fieldwork in the Canadian Rockies, lab experiments at @newcastleuni.bsky.social, and ecological modelling at @uniofstandrews.bsky.social
Details (including my email) here: iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
3 year postdoc funded by @ukri.org NERC on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins is now live - please share widely 🙏 www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...
10.11.2025 09:43 — 👍 35 🔁 46 💬 0 📌 4Some of the initial work centres around developing highly responsive ‘games’ that can maintain a balance between skill and challenge. Ultimately, we are interested in whether and how skill development impacts animal welfare. (Photo credit Unsplash_Moises de Paula).
07.11.2025 17:00 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Work is now well underway to assess if animals have the capacity for flow state (optimal activity-based experience). What a dream team of collaborators - Shivani Patel Alex Taylor Sara Hintze and Jeroen Lemmens (not on BlueSky yet!) spanning species, continents, settings, disciplines & approaches.
07.11.2025 17:00 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Fancy joining us?
Check out this excellent @royalsociety.org Career Development Fellowship:
royalsociety.org/grants/caree...
If you're eligible & are interested in social behaviour, vocal communication or anthropogenic impacts on wildlife, feel free to DM or email me.
@bristolbiosci.bsky.social
