Cultural learning permeates human skill and knowledge acquisition. To understand its importance for nonhuman apes, we analyzed just under 7000 records of behavioral bouts of social and individual lear...

As animal behaviorists increasingly use AI in their research, they grapple with how to wield the technology responsibly

Job Description Summary Organization's Summary Statement: The Wilkinson lab at the University of Maryland, College Park, is hiring a postdoc to join an ongoing NIH-funded project titled “Social stress...

Abstract. Cultural repertoires can influence access to resources and fitness across species, impacting individuals' environmental niches and social network

In recent years, several claims have been put forth suggesting that animals of different species address each other using receiver-specific calls that function as individual names. If accurate, this would demonstrate a capacity for symbolic social reference that has rarely been documented in nonhuman communication systems. To evaluate such claims, we propose three minimal criteria for identifying names: individual reference, symbolic representation, and shared meaning. We then review the evidence relevant to these criteria in the species for which name-like calls have been suggested: spectacled parrotlets, common marmosets, African elephants, and bottlenose dolphins. Together, these criteria provide a clear and theoretically grounded framework for exploring the use of name-like calls in nonhuman animals.

Science chats with cognitive psychologist Kelly Jaakkola about why this complex behavior is so difficult to find in the animal kingdom

In recent years, several claims have been put forth suggesting that animals of different species address each other using receiver-specific calls that function as individual names. If accurate, this w...

survey about observations of polyadic grooming in primate species

A new study suggests female bottlenose dolphins may have a strategy for steering clear of males with a history of pushy mating tactics.

In this study, we show that male sperm whales produce low-frequency slow clicks at low repetition rates with extreme source levels > 200 dB re 1 µPa (pp), making them the loudest mammalian communicat...

Machine learning (ML) tools can detect patterns in complex high-dimensional data sets, providing new ways to obtain insights into animal behaviour. Ho…

Like friendship itself, the slower ageing is more than just skin deep.

Communications Biology - Across 40 years of behavioural and epigenetic data, male dolphins with stronger social relationships show lower epigenetic ages and therefore appear to age slower compared...