iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by David Pritchard

Vivek Nityananda @viveknityananda.bsky.social · 17h

All of this

0123

Reposted by David Pritchard

Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 24/08/2026

Hummingbirds.

A four panel comic. In panel 1, a rufous hummingbird flies down toward a large hummingbird feeder with as many as 6 holes on top. He thinks "The humans put up a new feeder!" In panel 2, he lands on the feeder and gazes down at it. He thinks "It's huge. Many of us could feed here at once." In panel 3, we see a close up view of the hummingbird, and he's thinking "This could end the ancient rivalries. Usher in an era of peace. Interesting." In panel 4, an Anna's hummingbird hovers over the feeder and says "Hey, can I have some necta-" and the rufous hummingbird says "No."

100106052227

Reposted by David Pritchard

Vivek Nityananda @viveknityananda.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

So proud of Louie Yip from our lab who gave a brilliant talk about his PhD work on bee active vision! #ICN2026 #bees #vision

Louie standing in front of his talk with the slide titled "The development or active vision in bumblebees" featuring two bumblebees

1334

Reposted by David Pritchard

Kate Laskowski @katelaskowski.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Day 3 of #ISBE2026 is off and running! Felicity Muth tells us about bees and bee cognition. In bumblebees, queens are the quicker learners compared to workers because they just can't afford to get it wrong. Yas queen 👸

2495

Reposted by David Pritchard

Stu West @stuwest.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The University of Exeter have announced a programme of academic staff cuts, including all of www.exeter.ac.uk/research/gro... Sign the open letter of support at docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... @crab-exeter.bsky.social

exeter.ac.uk

Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB) | Research Groups | University of Exeter

33458

Reposted by David Pritchard

Shoko Sugasawa @shokosugasawa.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

New paper🪺 It is mainly male zebra finches that collect nest material, but in the nest females handle nest material as much as males. Stellar efforts by my former students Emma Ramsay & Daniel Olivares Gallego finally out. @cogwild.bsky.social @medicalsciencesncl.bsky.social #BiologyLetters

0144

Reposted by David Pritchard

HaDi MaBouDi @maboudi.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

I am very pleased to announce our upcoming Theo Murphy meeting at the Royal Society: Nature of Intelligence: Bridging Animal and Artificial Intelligence 21–22 September 2026 - Bristol, UK Registration deadline: 1 July Register here: lnkd.in/eGDAux-M #AI #AnimalCognition #Neuroscience

11212

Reposted by David Pritchard

Samantha Patrick @samanthacpatrick.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Join me & @olliepadget.bsky.social at @livuninews.bsky.social! #postdoc #seabird movement & navigation in response to environmental cues @ukri.org. Developing new loggers w/ micro-engineers & computer scientists @yorkuniversity.bsky.social. Job tinyurl.com/2zuzktv5 Press release tinyurl.com/2zuzktv5

44041

Reposted by David Pritchard

Nora Newcombe @noranewcombe.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

This book has just been published, open access, edited by Ken Cheng and me. It contains multiple chapters originating in a wonderful Strungmann Forum held in Frankfurt around a year ago. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

link.springer.com

Challenges in Navigation Research

This open access book explores navigation across species using a multidisciplinary approach to address challenges in research and clinical applications.

02110

Reposted by David Pritchard

Claudia Wascher @wascherclaudia.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Post-doc opportunity on comparative cognition and movement dynamics in corvids with the brilliant Prof Debbie Kelly at the University of Manitoba

13444

Reposted by David Pritchard

Nick Jones @nickarjones.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Excited to share our new paper @royalsocietypublishing.org This one took what felt like endless maze trials. We found that even modest warming (~1°C) changed an ectotherm's behaviour such that it affected cognitive performance. Speeding them up and reducing decision accuracy.

tiny.cc

Increasing temperature reduces decision accuracy by shifting speed–accuracy trade-offs in slower individuals

Abstract. Cognitive responses are linked to consistent individual behavioural variation, but the potential impact of warming on this relationship remains u

13117

Reposted by David Pritchard

Florent Le Moël @opticflo.xyz · 09/03/2026

We usually assume 🐜 ants 🐜 learn views when facing their goal, but our data shows that it is not necessarily the case! We combined field experiments with a biologically constrained model to show how a two-stage neural circuit (MB -> CX) could allow this: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A close-up photograph of an ant (Cataglyphis velox) holding a bit of cookie, attached on a trackball device (spherical tradmill)

11812

Reposted by David Pritchard

Vivek Nityananda @viveknityananda.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

New #PhD on #bees (BeeHd?)! Despite the ad saying "UK Students only", a limited number of scholarships are available for international candidates. So please apply!

03439

Reposted by David Pritchard

Oxford Biology @biology.ox.ac.uk · 16/02/2026

To understand how fish use vision to navigate, we must first understand what they see. New review from Cait Newport and @burt15theresa.bsky.social in @jexpbiol.bsky.social 👇 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

An illustration of how fish navigate in different visibility conditions. In high visibility, fish may rely on beaconing: when the target (eg food) is within visual range, they could swim directly towards it. In low visibility, the target is no longer visible from the starting point. Direct movement based only on memory of its location is risky, so they may use a landmark. Original illustration by Alicia Hayden.

082

Reposted by David Pritchard

Stu West @stuwest.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Comparative analysis across 5,678 insect species shows that, when you control for phylogenetic bias, eusociality has not evolved at a faster rate in haplodiploid species. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Eusociality has independently evolved in multiple arthropod lineages

03120

Reposted by David Pritchard

Michael Haslam @twigtechnology.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

With all this talk of cow tools now's a good time to mention my new paper with @abigaildesmond.bsky.social titled 'Why don't all animals use tools?' 🧪🛠️🐮 It's in press at the journal Animal Behaviour & Cognition. You can get a pdf of the accepted version from the research page of my site 🧵 1/

twig.technology

Research

14612

Reposted by David Pritchard

bioRxiv Animal Behavior and Cognition @biorxiv-behav.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

A view of bird's eyes -- Pigeons lock their eyes in place during flight www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…

063

Reposted by David Pritchard

ASAB Spring 2027 @asab-meetings.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Male courtship dances have co-evolved with female preferences in peacock spiders, but with closely related species, assortative mating is “leaky” 🦚🕷️ #ASABWinter2025

"Strange antics' and speciation. Photo of peacock spider. Jonah Walker
Joana Meier Chis Jiggins, Jongh Schuben, Ancie Jeop, Cyrila Tedos, Cunia Blar

0123

Reposted by David Pritchard

ASAB Spring 2027 @asab-meetings.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Congratulations to Hanna Kokko for receiving this year’s ASAB medal! Hanna has done extraordinary work and we are so pleased to honour her at #ASABWinter2025

Hanna posing with tthe medal with ASAB president Melissa

17410

Reposted by David Pritchard

Dr Sophia Daoudi-Simison @sophiadaoudi.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Fascinating Tinbergen Lecture by @toshitakaszk.bsky.social 🐦 on animal linguistics! Not only do Japanese tits have distinct sequence & predator calls 🐍🦅 they can also understand the calls of Willow tits!! You'll soon be able to get a copy of his book! #ASABWinter2025 @asab.org

0142

Reposted by David Pritchard

Andrew Straw @andrewstraw.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Have you ever wondered what you would find if you could keep your eyes on a bee for more than a few meters? Us, too! preprint (with videos!) + thread 🧵 Precise, individualized foraging flights in honey #bees 🐝 revealed by multicopter drone-based tracking www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/9

9376153

Reposted by David Pritchard

Shoko Sugasawa @shokosugasawa.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

New paper: Stick dexterity in carrion crows🥢 Commentary on Moll et al. 2025 in which they trained crows to use stick tools. Their neat set-up allowed tracking tool motions, showing that crows became more efficient over time. Could nest building affect their stick dexterity? Full text: rdcu.be/eSOMF

media.tenor.com

a drawing of a crow with its mouth open

Alt: a drawing of a crow with its beaks opening and closing

0266

Reposted by David Pritchard

Tomer J. Czaczkes @tomerczaczkes.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

PhD position - How jumping spiders see - Put cute spiders on trackballs! - Program fancy automated experiments! - Do cutting edge research! - Hang out in beautiful Italian cities! - Be supervised by a super nice chap! Like invertebrate behaviour and computation stuff? You'll love this. Link in 🧵

32812

Reposted by David Pritchard

David Pritchard @davidpritchard.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

#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...

iapetus.ac.uk

From preferences to pollination: do hummingbirds and bees differ in how they choose flowers?

02327

David Pritchard @davidpritchard.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

iapetus.ac.uk

From preferences to pollination: do hummingbirds and bees differ in how they choose flowers?

02327

Reposted by David Pritchard

Bibiana Rojas @biobiiana.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Beautiful plenary by @mariatelloramos.bsky.social on the architecture of structures built by cooperative weaver sparrows 🐦 #EtoEcoEvo25

091

Reposted by David Pritchard

Hannah Payne @hannahpayne.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

My latest Aronov lab paper is now published @Nature! When a chickadee looks at a distant location, the same place cells activate as if it were actually there 👁️ The hippocampus encodes where the bird is looking, AND what it expects to see next -- enabling spatial reasoning from afar bit.ly/3HvWSum

1027486

Reposted by David Pritchard

Comparative Cognition Society @compcogsoc.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

🎇✨Congratulations Prof. Susan Healy, our 2027 Research Award recipient (Uni. St Andrews, UK). A symposium + banquet will honor her contributions at the 2027 conference & a special issue will be published March 2028: 'In Honour of the Contributions of Susan Healy' #WomenInSTEM

1309

Reposted by David Pritchard

Shoko Sugasawa @shokosugasawa.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

New paper 🐣🌱🌷 Dartford warblers show high variation in nest materials: some nests are made of heather while others have a lot of grass. It seems birds can use different materials in different habitats without compromising nest insulation. nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Two pictures of nests made by Dartford warblers in England. One on the left is almost completely made of grass while one on the right is made of heather.

Two panels of plots that show data on nest materials (above) and nesting habitats (below) of Dartford warblers. Birds used nest materials that were readily available in respective habitats.

1114

Reposted by David Pritchard

Shoko Sugasawa @shokosugasawa.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

🚨Fully-funded PhD studentship on insect behaviour, cognition & muscles with me & @viveknityananda.bsky.social at @newcastleuni.bsky.social 🐝🍀🎓🙌Application deadline April 30, start date in September. Drop me an email if you have questions! www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate...

Image of a PhD position advert entitled "PhD studentship in Brain, Brawn, and Bugs: cognitive and physical factors of insect dexterity" with images of a praying mantis and a bumblebee foraging.

08565

Reposted by David Pritchard

Shoko Sugasawa @shokosugasawa.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Job alert🐦 2yr post-doc position with Prof. Sue Healy on project "Mistakes in Action: From the Normativity of Goal-Directedness to Novel Investigations of Avian Nest Construction"🪺 Start asap. Contact: sdh11[at]st-andrews.ac.uk @uniofstandrews.bsky.social

A pair of zebra finches sitting in a nestbox. The male is holding a cotton string in its bill.

13940