iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 15/07/2026

Delighted to learn that our project 'Ecological validity in comparative cognitive science' (co-led by @segundo-ortin.bsky.social and yours truly) has been funded! 👇

A picture of a woman and a man, somewhere in Shanghai, drinking liquorice tea from what looks like two serum bags. They look friendly and slightly mischievous.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 01/07/2026

Loving the cover of the Polish edition of my book Playing Possum. Out soon!

A pink book cover with white and red lettering, featuring a drawing of two opossums, one red and facing up, one white and facing down.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 20/05/2026

My book was a clue on Jeopardy!! Wtf this is too cool I think I’m ready to die now

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 08/05/2026

My favourite souvenir from last week’s conference: me looking back at my PhD student, @miguelborrajo.bsky.social, whose work criticises AI animal translation projects, as Louise Barrett sarcastically comments on anthropocentric animal cognition.

A picture of Louise Barrett giving a talk. The slide behind her says “translation is all that’s needed”. In the foreground, I look back with a knowing smile on my face.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 15/04/2026

Not me crying because I’m giving a talk at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour and a bunch of scientists show up to listen to my silly little thoughts

Definitely me crying because I’m giving a talk at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour and a bunch of scientists show up to listen to my silly little thoughts

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 13/04/2026

You know you’re in Germany when you can barely see yourself in the hotel mirror.

A picture of a round black-framed mirror on a blue wall. A tiny woman emerges in the bottom third of the reflection, taking a selfie with the phone in front of her face.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 08/04/2026

I'm used to my name being misspelled but this one's new

A screenshot of white lettering over a black background. It says: "Dear Dr Potts, I hope this email finds you well!"

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 20/03/2026

The paperback arrived! And it's as cute as ever but now full of kind words 🥺♥️ Available for purchase from April 14: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

The front cover of Playing Possum, with the blurbs "Remarkable" by Peter Singer and "A major contribution" by The New Yorker.

The back cover of Playing Possum with more praise.

The first page of Playing Possum with more praise.

The second page of Playing Possum with more praise.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/03/2026

Yesterday was a truly special day as I returned to my beloved Vienna to receive a prize for a book that I conceived and wrote in that same city. Moved by the presence of friends in the audience and so thankful to everyone who voted for me.

Several people sitting on a stage in a beautiful hall. I’m pictured talking with my hands. A screen behind us shows the title and cover of the German edition of my book.

A picture of me on a stage holding my prize with the Austrian minister for science next to me holding a copy of my book.

The prize winners on a stage holding their prize and their books. A screen behind them shows the covers of the four winners of the Science Book of the Year awards.

A picture of me looking exhilarated in front of a window shop displaying my book.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 12/02/2026

I got a copy of the Chinese edition of my book and it is so cute!

A picture of an arm with a colourful sweater and pink fingernails holding a pastel blue book with light brown skulls and Chinese lettering on the cover.

The jacket of the book is lifted to reveal a print of a cute opossum and the words “La zarigüeya de Schrödinger”.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/11/2025

Obsessed with the cover of the Chinese edition of my book!!

A book cover in pastel blue with cream-coloured skulls and bones. The text says “La zarigüeya de Schrödinger. Cómo viven y entienden la muerte los animales. Susana Monsó” in white lettering, surrounded by Chinese characters in black.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 11/09/2025

Animal experts! Please can you help me figure out the culprit behind what I found in my office drawer after returning from my holidays? Is it a mouse or a rat? Or something else entirely? I should have it all disinfected right? 😬

The inside of an office drawer with a keyboard, some chapstick, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and handcream. There is a chocolate bar whose wrapping appears to have been torn open. The chocolate shows signs of having been chewed off. There are small poos on the keyboard.

Close up of the chewed up chocolate bar.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 12/08/2025

In Shanghai, at SAPoLSN 2025, talking about possums, naturally making my dead possum face. [Picture credit goes to @segundo-ortin.bsky.social]

A picture of myself giving a talk and looking as though I’m about to vomit. The picture on the slide behind me shows a possum playing possum.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 15/07/2025

Loved this review of Playing Possum in Fortean Times. "[A] bracing, rigorous, jaunty and downright brilliant study" -- thank you, kind stranger!

Screenshot of a review of Playing Possum

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 16/06/2025

This study is an example of the sort of paradigm shift we're hoping for. Ants and humans were compared in their capacity to solve the same puzzle under the same conditions, partly modelled after the ants' abilities. 14/17 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Four pictures, taken from above, depicting the experimental setup. The two pictures on the left depict a single ant and a single human attempting to move an I-shaped object through an obstructive environment. The two pictures on the right show the same puzzle being solved by a group of ants and a group of humans.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 07/04/2025

I wouldn’t normally share my theatre stuff here but I’m very proud to be playing Helena in the Madrid Players’ 60th anniversary production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. If you’re in Madrid next weekend, you can come watch our magical show at Teatro Soho.

Picture of two women on stage. One is a brunette wearing an orange dress. She looks menacing. The other one is a blonde in a blue dress. She looks taken aback. Two fairy creatures watch them from behind some steps in the background, in front of a black curtain painted with forest motifs in neon colours. The lighting is blue.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/02/2025

And lastly, our definition would be applicable to cases of bad medicine in animals. Some chimpanzees, for instance, apply insects to their wounds, which might be medicine even if it doesn't heal them, if the chimps see it as a (misguided) solution to the problem that is a wound. 19/20

Six pictures depicting a chimpanzee in the jungle applying insects to a wound on their leg.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/02/2025

It also applies to the support during parturition that has been seen in some primate species, such as these white-headed langurs (Pan et al. 2014). 18/20

Six pictures depicting a langur giving birth and being aided by some group members.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/02/2025

So in a way our definition is more restrictive. But in another sense, it's more expansive. It covers for instance the care behaviour directed at individuals who are dying or disabled, such as these dolphins helping a dying individual stay afloat (Park et al. 2012). 17/20

A photograph with a diagram underneath representing a group of dolphins making a raft formation with their bodies to help a dying dolphin stay afloat and breathe.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/02/2025

This definition applies to human medical practices but also covers many animal practices. It applies for instance to the paradigmatic behaviour of chimpanzees who deal with gut parasites through the consumption of medicinal plants (pictures from Huffman 1997). 15/20

A chimpanzee chewing on a bitter pith, whose juices kill intestinal parasites.

A chimpanzee swallowing a leaf whole, which helps dislodge parasites from their intestinal tracts.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/02/2025

His is far from the only case of an animal seen dealing with their own or another's health issues. There are ants who amputate the limbs of injured nestmates (Frank et al. 2024)... 3/20

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 29/01/2025

Estas cosas te pasan demasiado, Jesús 😂 Te dejo por aquí una sugerencia.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 05/01/2025

I don’t think 2025 is likely to be cute at all, but I am pretty stoked about being among Lena Dunham’s reads for this year!

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 27/12/2024

Still looking for a gift for that weirdly gothic friend of yours, the one insufferably obsessed with animals, or the smug intellectual who nevertheless appreciates a good joke? Here are some reasons why PLAYING POSSUM (published by @princetonupress.bsky.social) may be just what you need:

The cover of PLAYING POSSUM: HOW ANIMALS UNDERSTAND DEATH by Susana Monsó, featuring a bubblegum pink background, red and white lettering, and an illustration of a white opossum walking the line of life, with her dead counterpart upside down underneath her

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 30/10/2024

Spotted in the wild (ie. Toronto)!

A woman with dark hair wearing a black puffer and beanie looking excited in front of a table full of books. In the centre is a copy of Playing Possum, the book she’s excited about.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 19/10/2024

I’m in the Wall Street Journal talking, for once, about books that aren’t my own archive.ph/7ffBC

Screenshot of the Wall Street Journal article, reading “Five Best: Books on the Animal Kingdom, selected by the author, most recently, of Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death” and featuring a closeup of a yellow snail

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 19/09/2024

It’s here! And it’s so pink! And I can finally put to use the two stuffed possums I have in my office!

A picture of me looking ecstatic holding a copy of Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death. The cover is bubblegum pink and features a white opossum with an upside-down dead counterpart.

A copy of Playing Possum on a green window sill with two stuffed possums, one climbing on it and the other one playing possum.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 17/09/2024

I got jelly and wanted to share mine too

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 08/08/2024

Quote with a picture of you from the '80s. [inside my dad's suitcase, after having decided to put all his underwear on my head]

A toddler sitting inside a brown suitcase, wearing a pink Aristocats pijama and a heap of underpants on her head.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 05/06/2024

I just finished reading Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. I know I’m late for this, but holy cow, I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel so wise, so beautiful, so sad. The kind of book that breaks your heart a million times and yet you never want to leave it’s world. Wow.

Cover of “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara, featuring a black and white photograph of the face and hand of a man in pain.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 22/05/2024

The first blurbs are in! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

A screenshot of blurbs on 'Playing Possum' by Lori Gruen, Kristin Andrews, Peter Singer, and David Peña-Guzmán

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 01/05/2024

My book finally has a cover and I love it!!!

The cover of “Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death”, featuring a bubblegum pink background, red and white lettering, and an illustration of an opossum with her dead counterpart as her upside-down mirror image.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 15/03/2024

Overcome by a mix of excitement and vertigo now that I've received the proofs for my book... This is happening!!!

Screenshot of a page reading "Playing Possum
How Animals Understand Death
Susana Monsó"

Screenshot of the table of contents, reading "Contents
Foreword, by Mark Rowlands
1 Introduction: The Silence of the Chimps
2 The Ant Who Attended Her Own Funeral
3 The Whale Who Carried Her Baby Across Half the World
4 The Ape Who Played House with Corpses
5 The Dog Who Mistook His Human for a Snack
6 The Elephant Who Collected Ivory
7 The Opossum Who Was Both Dead and Alive
8 Conclusion: The Animal Who Brought Flowers to the Dead
Acknowledgments for the Spanish Edition
Acknowledgments for the English Edition
Notes
Image Credits
Index"

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 20/12/2023

Very happy to finally have my copy of Ánima by Ruth Montiel Arias. This brave and beautiful book poignantly documents the Spanish tradition of the slaughter of the pig. I wrote a short foreword where I reflect on how this practice constitutes a betrayal of these pigs' trust in their caretakers.

Jacket of the book Ánima by Ruth Montiel Arias, featuring white lettering over a black and white blurry background

A picture by Ruth Montiel Arias of a man's hands resting on the back of a live pig. The pig's back is bloodstained due to the man's previous slaughter of another pig.

A picture by Ruth Montiel Arias of human hands washing a bloodstained knife.

A picture by Ruth Montiel Arias of a table full of pig entrails. A person is half-depicted in the background making sausages out of them.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 10/11/2023

Crary and Gruen's recent book "Animal Crisis" is an excellent new contribution to the literature on animal ethics. Profoundly insightful and very carefully argued, it deserves much more attention than it has gotten.

The cover of 'Animal Crisis: A new critical theory' by Alice Crary and Lori Gruen, featuring the face of an orangutan.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 01/11/2023

My book on animals' concept of death will be published in English in 2024 with Princeton Univ. Press! The title will be 'Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death.' I translated it myself and added more gothic animal facts and silly jokes. We don't have a cover yet, so here's the Russian one.

Cover of the Russian edition of my book, featuring two opossum faces, one of them looking dead and the other one alive and mischievous.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 17/10/2023

This Thursday I'll be giving a talk in Lisbon at this workshop organised by the Evorise project. Sadly Paco Calvo won't make it, so the audience will have to make do with boring old animal sentience. Still -- very excited to share my research and to visit Portugal for the very first time!

Poster for the Evorise Workshop "A tale of two kingdoms: Exploring the prospects of animal and plant sentience"

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 04/10/2023

Very sad to hear of the passing of Tomás Calvo, world-renowned expert on Aristotle and my first academic mentor. When I went to him seeking advice as a young BA student, all he said was: go out and see the world. And so I went to do an MA in London, and the rest is history. Very grateful. RIP.

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Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com · 03/10/2023

Walked into my office and found a copy of this on my desk. So happy to see it out in the world!

The cover of “New Omnivorism and Strict Veganism”, edited by Cheryl Abbate and Chris Bobier

The first page of the chapter I coauthored with Sara Hintze for this volume, titled “For their own good? The unseen harms of disenhancing farmed animals”

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