Thanks to co-authors @odedkeynan.bsky.social , and @gso-forresearchers.bsky.social and @cbehav.bsky.social for funding!

5/ Or maybe are there some secret advantages in those specific roosting trees? One sure thing is that conserving these “ordinally looking” trees is important!
More sleep research in Arabian babblers is here (royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...) & more to come…

4/ Do social traditions play a role in the usage of specific roosting sites?
Demographic changes in ELU group. Although group membership had undergone 3 complete changeovers over the last 15 years, the group continues to roost (mostly) on their very favourite tree…

3/ Among the various criteria we tested, dense canopy was found to be a necessary criterion for a roosting site, yet, as there are many dense trees within territories, the question remains: Why stick to a very few specific trees?

2/ Arabian babblers are cooperatively breeding birds living in the Arabian Peninsula deserts. They live in territorial groups year-round. We show that each territory includes many trees seem suitable for roosting, but, for some reason, groups roost in ~3 of them only (non-roosting trees in green)

1/ Social groups of a bird species use the same roosting trees for ≥15 years & ≥4 generations! To the best of our knowledge, this is the longest documented roosting site fidelity among cooperatively breeding birds & mammals.
Check out our new paper royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

#speetol2025 attendees! If you have parental care data from wild birds or mammals, please discuss cooperation with @co-breed.bsky.social.
We offer FAIR co-authorship for data contributors.
I will be available during today's poster session.
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The Cooperative Breeding Database (Co-BreeD) joined Bluesky!
Follow it for updates on state-of-the-art datasets on cooperative breeding birds and mammals!
@co-breed.bsky.social

We are expanding (again!)
PAID research assistant / MSc positions!
Flexible research on #cooperation / #communication / #animal_behaviour / #cognition / #human_evolution / #philosophy_of_biology
Residency in Leipzig /Konstanz is a big + !
Must be enrolled on a German university!
[email protected]

8/9 Do Arabian babblers learn food processing skills from each other? Are there different processing “traditions” across populations? More exciting questions to be addressed soon… ( an Arabian babbler from a different population handles a caterpillar) 📸 @krista_natasha

7/9 The birds selectively transported the prey to a proper substrate if the original one didn’t fit the right caterpillar manipulation. In this way, Arabian babblers can achieve higher efficiency in processing their food.

6/9 Other caterpillar species (Hyles) are strongly pounded against a hard substrate until their gut, hypothesized to be parasitized or toxic, is expelled. Consequently, the birds consume only the outer part of the prey.

5/9 Moth caterpillars (Casama) with long toxic hairs are being carefully rubbed against sandy substrates. In this way, the hairs are removed, and the entire caterpillar can be eaten.

4/9 We found that Arabian babblers fit the right processing methods and substrates to overcome different protective mechanisms of their prey. Such flexibility seems to be essential to survive in a resource-scarce environment.

3/9 Arabian babblers live in extreme deserts and feed on diverse invertebrate species. These prey developed defensive mechanisms such as toxic hairs or hard cuticles. Hence, before gaining the joy of eating, babblers must manipulate the prey, and they know how to do it.

2/9 Arabian babblers use tools (i.e. present objects) as a communicative means to invite conspecifics for copulation (www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....) and play (brill.com/view/journal...). But it’s the first time their use of environmental features for foraging is described.

***Multiple prolonged and paid***
research assistant positions in Behavioural Ecology & Evolutionary Anthropology!

Thanks to a generous grant from Zukunftskolleg, the GCoo-BreeD project will be expanded dramatically.

Come work with a supportive and fair team and atmosphere!

*Paid research assistant position in Animal Behaviour!*

email your C.V. to Dr. Yitzchak Ben Mocha ([email protected])
Please explain shortly how you meet the above requirements + use the email title (GCoo-BreeD job)