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Lisa Fontana

@lisafontana.bsky.social
260 followers 407 following 11 posts

PhD Candidate at the Australian National University, working on innovation, cognitive ecology and social learning in sulphur-crested cockatoos 🦜

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Reposted by Lisa Fontana
Lucy Aplin @lucymaplin.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
An exhausting but inspiring 5 days at #ISBE2026 @isbe2026.bsky.social. As always, a highlight was getting to bring the Uni Zurich and Australian National University halves of our lab group together, as well as catching up with past lab members! Even better if 1m long pizza is involved...
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@PabloRecio93 @pablorecio93.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Paper alert! 🦎 Can lizards count? How does early-environment affect their quantity discrimination abilities? We investigated these questions. New paper w/ @danielwanoble.bsky.social @cpictus.bsky.social [link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s…]
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Feeling incredibly grateful to be presenting at such an important conference in the same city where I completed my master's degree. This is where I used to dream about doing the kind of work I have the privilege to do today @isbe2026.bsky.social
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
So it begins #ISBE2026 @isbe2026.bsky.social
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Sofia Forss @sofiaforss.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
🚨New primate urbanization paper🚨We looked at weather anthropogenic experiences link to within population innovativeness. Our new results from @urbanvervetproject.bsky.social can be found here 👇🏼 Behavioral flexibility and its drivers in semi-urban vervet monkeys academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...
academic.oup.com
Behavioral flexibility and its drivers in semi-urban vervet monkeys
Monkeys bring their own skills to the city. Urban animals are often seen as especially flexible or innovative—but do urban environments make them that way?
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Amazing talk by my partner @pablorecio93.bsky.social at ASSAB 2026 (@animbehav.bsky.social), and funnily, about pair bonding in reptiles
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ASSAB @animbehav.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Another fantastic talk about the fairywren by Samuele Ramellini @sramellini.bsky.social #ASSAB2026 make sure to check out his paper!
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Today I presented my talk at ASSAB 2026 (@animbehav.bsky.social) about my experimental work investigating innovation and social learning in wild cockatoos. Always a privilege to share my work, and hear what everyone else is up to across the Australasian region!
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Julia Penndorf @julia-penndorf.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
🎉New paper alert 🥳 Does proximity of breeding hollows influence foraging associations in wild cockatoos? doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... (🧵—1/2) With @lucymaplin.bsky.social , A. Csak
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Julia Penndorf @julia-penndorf.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
🎉🦜NEW PAPER ALERT 🦜🎉 Which social learning biases underly the acquisition of novel food in wild parrots ? We (@lucymaplin.bsky.social, @bjjbarrett.bsky.social, @sonjawild.bsky.social, @drjohnmartin.bsky.social) presented >700 cockies with a novel, artificial food (🧵1/6)
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Julia Penndorf @julia-penndorf.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
There is order in pandemonium 😜 1- We show that wild SC-cockies have sex & age structured hierarchies, stable for at least 3 years 🏆 2- We provide guidance on how to choose the right threshold for your data when using rElo.
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
New paper alert! 🦜 We gave wild cockatoos puzzle boxes across Canberra’s urban gradient. The finding? Urban birds approach faster, but are not better solvers. Our results suggest that urbanization shapes neophobia independently from cognitive performance. Read it here: doi.org/10.1093/behe...
doi.org
Social and ecological factors associated with innovation in urban sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita)
Cities are challenging places for wildlife, but some species, like sulfur-crested cockatoos, adapt by finding new ways to feed and solve problems. We studi
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Andrew Digby @digs.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
The first #kakapo chick for four years hatched two days ago (on Valentine’s Day for those who like to anthropomorphise!). Here’s Tiwhiri-A1-2026 in Yasmine’s nest. 📸: Deidre Vercoe. www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-r... #kakapo2026 #conservation #parrots #birds
A kākāpō chick in a nest with an egg. Credit: Deidre Vercoe
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Julia Penndorf @julia-penndorf.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
A few days short of my 8(!!) year anniversary in the Aplin lab, it‘s time to say goodbye to a truly amazing lab & start a new, exciting, chapter! R: 1st day of PhD fieldwork &1st time having a bird land on me (2018). L: soaked through (but happy!) postdoc with the same bird, Tobruk (103).
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
theguardian.com
Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows
Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in different ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Italian friends! Sono stata invitata a partecipare ad un episodio di ‘Disco scienza’ con Andrea Bellati, se siete curiosi di saperne di più sulle mie ricerche andate ad ascoltare 🦜 open.spotify.com/episode/3sFz...
open.spotify.com
Spotify – Web Player
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
🎉🍾 very excited to see this out before 2025 ends doi.org/10.1111/2041... with Will Hoppitt in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. This paper is an overview of our new R package STbayes, a user-friendly toolkit for performing Bayesian NBDA analyses. @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social
doi.org
STbayes: An R package for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission
A critical consequence of joining social groups is the possibility of social transmission of information related to novel behaviours or resources. Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) has emerg...
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The Clever Cockie Research Project @clevercockierp.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Our paper on cockatoos innovating+social learning the use of bubblers as an urban water source was one of the 10 most popular papers for 2025 in the Royal Society's journals. Couldn't be more pleased! royalsociety.org/blog/2025/12...
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Andrew Iwaniuk @evoneuro.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
My #BirdOfTheDay #Headshots is Sulphur-crested Cockatoo from Lorne, Victoria, Australia #WildOz #birds #birding #parrots 🪶
A headshot of a bright white cockatoo with a yellow crest and its feathers fluffed up around its black beak.
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Andrew Iwaniuk @evoneuro.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
A teaser for my talk this Saturday. Can't go wrong with a parrot on the title slide...🪶🦜🧠🧪
A landscape image of a multicoloured small parrot with a long tail and the end of a long dead branch. The top of the slide reads: Why study bird brains?
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Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Excited to share insights on urban cockatoos innovations at the Australasian Ornithological Conference 2025, in Perth
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The Clever Cockie Research Project @clevercockierp.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Big day yesterday, CleverCockie lab member Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social finished the last day of data collection for her PhD, completing an experiment on social learning in cockatoos. Congratulations Lisa! 🎉
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The Clever Cockie Research Project @clevercockierp.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
That's the spot...! A trio of allopreening cockies engaging in some social bonding at our field-site, captured by @elliearose.bsky.social. If you'd like to learn more about when and why cockies allopreen, check out a recent paper by @julia-penndorf.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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The Clever Cockie Research Project @clevercockierp.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
An extremely clever cockie, or one regretting their life choices? Spotted at our Canberra field-site by @lisafontana.bsky.social, it's first time we've seen a sulphur-crested cockatoo successfully fledge 3 chicks! The usual is 2 eggs laid, resulting in 0-1 chicks.
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The Clever Cockie Research Project @clevercockierp.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Hi Bluesky! 👋 We're the account for the Clever Cockie Project, researching culture and cognition in urban sulphur-crested cockatoos. We'll post updates from the field, along with our recent results and publications. You can find more, including our current team, here: www.clevercockies.com/the-team
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Dr Sophia Daoudi-Simison @sophiadaoudi.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Great example of successful citizen science #ASABSpring2025
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ASAB 2025 @asab-spring-2025.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
#conferencegoals #ASABSpring2025 What an amazing bunch 🦤
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Louise Mackie, PhD @louisemackie.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Learning about those mischievous wild cockatoos with Lisa Fontana from the Australian National University #cultureconference2025 @cultconf.bsky.social
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