iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Kai Caspar @nomascus.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

New preprint, building on the thesis of my former undergrad @cstreitferdt.bsky.social: doi.org/10.64898/202... We present evidence that conjunctival pigmentation (peripheral to the iris) in terrestrial mammals is importantly driven by demands of UV protection. Quick thread 🧵1/5.

Phylogenetic tree of 62 terrestrial mammals from the preprint. Bar length indicates eye size, bar color approximates brightness of peri-iridal tissues.

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Jesspooka Kant 🎃 @jessdkant.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

This is an excellent piece and thread. This point is really important— I don't think most people outside of academia realize that separate from normal processing fees in high-impact journals, we actually have to pay to make our own papers open access. This is only sometimes covered by institutions.

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Ecology of Animal Societies @livingingroups.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Humans have many unusual traditions. But did you know animals’ strange behaviors can become culture too? Out now in Current Biology (doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...) we show the rise and spread of a surprising tradition: interspecies infant abduction. Interactive timeline (www.ab.mpg.de/671374) 🧵 (1/12)

An illustration of a white-faced capuchin monkey carrying a howler infant on their back while cracking nuts with a stone

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

animal prattle @animal-prattle.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

🦇👶 batble 👶🦇 @ahanaaurora.bsky.social et al. ( @berlinbatlab.bsky.social) show in @elife.bsky.social that feedback from moms shapes baby bat babbling via "longitudinal ... recordings & behavioral monitoring of ... mother-pup pairs across [multiple colonies]" 🤯 lotta data! #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

For German and French speakers interested in animal culture, this doco will be well worth 43 mins of your time. For everyone else, great tits solving puzzle boxes speak for themselves 🐦🧩🧠@lucymaplin.bsky.social @mchimento.bsky.social www.arte.tv/de/videos/11...

arte.tv

Kultur im Tierreich - Voneinander lernen - Die ganze Doku | ARTE

Bei Menschen wie bei Tieren beruht die Weitergabe von Kultur auf sozialem Lernen. Vier Arten geben Einblicke in die Kulturvermittlung im Tierreich: Kohlmeisen und Grünmeerkatzen lernen die Tricks der ...

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Pranav Minasandra @pminasandra.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

🚨 Out this week in @pnas.org 🚨 The flagship paper from my PhD @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @livingingroups.bsky.social - We show surprising statistical similarities in animal behaviour across states, individuals, and even species. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... (🧵 1/10)

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Tomer J. Czaczkes @tomerczaczkes.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

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....

pnas.org

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 ...

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD @ryankatzrosene.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Wild! “Researchers have concluded that too many older fish have been removed from these waters, preventing the knowledge of the best spawning grounds being passed to younger, less experienced fish.”

Screenshot of https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01433-0

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Science Magazine @science.org · 13/05/2025

If you happen to see a friend across the street, odds are you might raise an arm and wiggle your hand to say hello. Cuttlefish apparently do something similar—and that’s not the only arm gesture they use to communicate. Learn more: scim.ag/4j5nmQv

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Kai Caspar @nomascus.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Due to the whites of the eye, humans have a uniquely communicative gaze. Other primates have dark eyes, hiding their gaze from conspecifics. We cooperate, they compete. Common knowledge – right? Yes, but it’s incorrect, as we argue in our new paper 🧵🧪1/11 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Human eye on top, squirrel monkey eye below. Little of the peri-iridal tissues are exposed in the squirrel monkey, which is now understood to derive from simply scaling constraints and human adaptations to horizontal scanning. There is no evidence for social cognition being tied to such differences in eye appearances.

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) @bou.org.uk · 15/05/2025

The Neophobia Hypothesis: nest decoration in birds may reduce predation by corvids | doi.org/10.1098/rsos... | Royal Society Open Science | #ornithology 🪶

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

"Findings suggest that compositionality [the capacity to combine meaningful elements into larger meaningful structures] is a prominent feature of the bonobo vocal system revealing stronger parallels with human language than previously thought." Fascinating work by @berthetmelissa.bsky.social et al.🧪

science.org

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 ...

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Reposted by Charlotte Streitferdt

Marine Joly @marinemjoly.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

« If we cut or limit funding for curiosity-driven research, we risk shutting down the pipeline of future innovation. While the outcomes of basic science may seem unclear or esoteric at first, such work frequently forms the bedrock of future technologies, treatments, and therapies. »

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