Behavior with Britney

Family Dinner Just Got a Whole Lot More... Competitive? 🐟 Animals (including us) often eat more when others are around. But why? Is it copying? Feeling safer? Getting distracted? Or does simply having others nearby flip a competitive switch? To test this, we studied zebrafish and gave them an audience behind glass. These passive observers could be seen, but had no access to food, meaning no copying and no real competition. Even then, the fish changed how they ate: they consumed more, manipulated their food more, and showed clear competitive behaviors: Males turned away from the audience when manipulating food, while females held food in their mouths longer when swallowing wasn’t possible, both as if avoiding potential “food thieves.” Our findings show that a passive audience alone can alter feeding behavior, and that the roots of “social eating” run deeper than mimicry. Sometimes just being watched is enough to boost motivation... possibly through perceived competition. Read more: doi.org/10.3758/s13420…

Stress Isn't All Bad 🐒 While too much stress may shorten your lifespan, not enough might not be too good either! Researchers found that wild capuchins with higher stress responses to small droughts were twice as likely to survive the massive El Niño drought. This is compelling evidence that stress responsiveness can boost survival during extreme times. But, it wasn’t that others failed to respond to unusual environmental change... They just showed the opposite pattern: reacting more to heavier-than-normal rainfall. So, the monkeys that did not survive the massive drought might have been the survivors if the catastrophe had been a flood instead! The discovery of these stress phenotypes shows how behavioural diversity supports the survival of a species, since multiple strategies (opposite stress responses) may be adaptive under different extremes. Read more: doi.org/10.1126/sciadv… @scarrera11

Feeling Shy? You Might Just Be Sensitive! 🦀 A new study on hermit crabs found that those with a more sensitive sense were less bold. Researchers measured how long crabs hid after being poked in a startle test and found that crabs with more tiny sensory hairs (sensilla) on their claws stayed hidden for longer and reacted more predictably. Meanwhile, bolder crabs had fewer of these sensory hairs. It makes sense that if you feel more, you might react more strongly. But why do some crabs have more sensory hairs than others? This study suggests a sensory investment syndrome: a possible trade-off between sensing more and doing more! Read more: doi.org/10.6084/m9.fig… @Ari_Drummond @Lucymturner @mark_briffa

Breeding Out Fear Increases Playfulness 🐔 Play isn’t just for people or pets! It’s found all across the animal kingdom. And now, new research shows it may also be tied to something unexpected: domestication. In this study, researchers looked at red junglefowl (the wild ancestors of domestic chickens) and bred them over 14 generations to be either more or less fearful of humans. The goal was to see if this change in fear would lead to other changes in behavior. They found that the more “tame” birds/those less afraid of humans, played more overall than their fearful counterparts. But not all play was the same. The tame birds showed more object play (like chasing toys) and locomotor play (running or spinning), while the fearful birds actually played more socially (sparring and bouncing around with each other), more like their wild relatives. Because the researchers bred birds based specifically on how afraid they were of humans, they could clearly trace how tameness itself influenced behavior, offering new insight into how traits like playfulness evolve. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Horses Learn by Eavesdropping on Us 🐎 In this study, researchers found that 12 out of 17 horses changed their feeding behavior after eavesdropping on a human-human interaction. When a familiar person either praised or scolded another person for eating from a certain bucket, the horses later chose the “approved” bucket, even when the people were no longer present. The effect was even stronger in horses kept in social groups compared to those kept in isolation. That means social experience might shape how well animals pick up on and learn from human behavior. This is the first evidence that horses can form feeding preferences just by watching how humans treat each other. Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Is a Good Memory Inherited? 🐦 For food-storing birds, remembering where caches are hidden can mean the difference between survival and starvation. Some species can recall hundreds to thousands of food locations. Scientists expected that memory and caching strategies would have a genetic basis, but were in for a surprise. After testing the food-storing species toutouwai with memory tasks and tracking their caching behavior, researchers found almost no evidence that these traits are inherited. Birds varied in performance, but not along family lines. Instead, it's experience, like the threat of food theft, that may shape both memory and caching strategies. Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.100… @The_robins_hood

Too Cool (and Competitive) for School 🐟 Blind cavefish live in pitch-black caves with no eyes or pigment. Although these fish evolve from highly social, sighted populations, they don’t form schools anymore. This change was long thought to be a side effect of losing their vision. But we discovered that cavefish aren’t just indifferent to each other... They actively avoid one another! Here’s a quick summary of my first publication, hot off the press! Let’s take a step back. Why do fish school? Schooling usually comes with a ton of perks: it helps fish find food and avoid becoming food themselves. So why would any fish choose not to school? Well, in caves, there’s hardly any food, making every meal a high-stakes competition. Whoever gets there first wins, and there’s nothing left to share. Plus, they have NO PREDATORS. That’s right. These blind fish rule the cave food chain! So, swimming together becomes pointless, and it might even cost you your dinner. We wanted to figure out what exactly changed in them that turned these fish from social butterflies into loners so quickly, in evolutionary terms. It turns out that when they are hungry or have even just eaten, they avoid each other even more, as if those states trigger extra competitiveness. We also found that tweaking their hormone levels changes how social they act. For instance, blocking isotocin (the fish version of oxytocin) actually made them swim a bit closer together. This supports the idea that oxytocin doesn’t necessarily make animals more social. Instead, it makes social cues more noticeable. So if you’re wired to see others as bad news, turning down that hormone makes you pay less attention… and avoid them less! In the end, it’s not blindness alone, but a deeper evolutionary shift that makes these fish anti-social. When survival in total darkness depends on grabbing every last scrap of food, swimming solo simply makes more sense. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.109…

Turtles Move with the Heat 🐢 Green turtles are famously slow and steady, but this study reveals they’ve been surprisingly quick to adjust their schedule in a warming world. Three decades of data from a beach in North Cyprus show that turtles are nesting earlier each year. Why? Rising sea temperatures. Individual turtles are responding directly to warmer waters, laying eggs about 6.5 days earlier for every 1°C increase. It’s one of the clearest examples yet of a marine reptile shifting its reproductive timing in response to climate change, not through evolution, but through behavioral flexibility. It’s a hopeful sign, but also a reminder: plasticity has limits, and the climate isn’t slowing down. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs… @MollieRickwood

A Hot Start, A Rough Future 🪲 Burying beetles have a unique parenting strategy: they turn animal carcasses into both a food source and a nursery for their young, then stay behind to feed and protect their larvae as they grow. However, new research shows that this finely tuned system starts to falter when temperatures rise. If a heatwave hits only one stage of care (either preparing the carcass or raising the larvae) the beetles hold up fairly well. But when both stages are exposed to heat, the effects pile up. Fewer larvae survive, and those that do often grow into smaller, less robust adults. These results reveal how climate change doesn’t need to cause extreme damage all at once. Subtle stress at just the right moments can quietly disrupt reproduction, with ripple effects that extend far beyond. As heatwaves become more frequent, they’re more likely to overlap with both key parenting stages, putting beetle reproduction and the ecosystems they support at risk. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Can Collars Capture Personality? 🐿️ Scientists wanted to know if accelerometer collars could measure personality in wild squirrels as well as traditional behavioral tests. Personality is often studied in controlled settings, but it’s unclear if those results reflect real-world behavior. To compare methods, researchers placed squirrels in a box near their home and recorded how much they moved and explored, identifying two traits: "activity" and "exploration." They then tracked the same squirrels in the wild using accelerometer collars, which measured behaviors related to foraging and movement. The box tests provided more consistent personality scores, but the collars still captured meaningful individual differences! Most notably, squirrels that explored more in the box also spent more time foraging in the wild, suggesting a link between exploratory tendencies in a controlled test and real-world food-seeking behavior. This shows that accelerometers can be a valuable tool for studying personality in nature, but they measure different aspects of behavior than traditional tests! Read more: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Reflection of Rank! 🪿 Aggression and dominance are closely linked in many animals, but figuring out who holds the top rank usually requires long-term observation of fights. This study introduces a faster way: a mirror test, which is typically used to measure aggression, may also predict dominance. The researchers found that greylag geese who reacted aggressively to their reflection were also more dominant in real social interactions. This suggests that a simple mirror test could reveal social rank without the need for extensive behavioral tracking. But aggression alone doesn’t determine rank. Males, older geese, and those in heterosexual pairs—rather than homosocial or unpaired groups—tended to rank higher in the hierarchy, showing that social status is shaped by sex, experience, and relationships. This challenges the idea that dominance is purely about physical strength. It’s just as much about how individuals navigate their social environment! Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Opposites Really Do Attract... When It Comes to Skill! 🦜 Budgerigars were trained on one of two puzzle food boxes: one required lifting a lid, while the other involved pulling a drawer. After training, females watched two males: one solving the same type of puzzle they had learned and one solving the other type. When given the choice, females spent more time near the male with the different skill. Pairing with a mate who has a complementary foraging technique could provide an advantage. A diverse skill set allows pairs to access more food sources and improves efficiency. This might also benefit their offspring, who get exposure to a wider range of foraging techniques. Interestingly, the number of times a male solved the puzzle didn’t matter—only the type of skill did! These findings suggest mate choice isn’t just about appearance or flashy displays. Practical skills can also shape social and reproductive decisions in animals. Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Thermal Priming Allows Fish To Keep Their Cool! 🐟 Scientists uncovered a surprising ‘heatwave memory’ in threespine stickleback fish by raising three generations under different temperature conditions. Some fish got a mild heatwave before a stronger one, while others faced only a single intense heatwave or none at all. By tracking egg production, offspring survival, and curiosity, researchers found that fish exposed to a mild heatwave first handled a later extreme heatwave better. They laid more eggs, survived longer, and even passed some of those benefits to their grandkids. But fish hit with a single, sudden heatwave without prior exposure struggled as they laid fewer, smaller eggs, explored less, and had lower long-term survival. Those that never experienced heatwaves remained stable but didn’t gain any resilience. What’s exciting here is how a short-lived heatwave can leave long-term advantages, even across generations. Most studies focus on a single heat event or constant warm water, but this one shows that a little heat training might make a big difference. Future research can investigate exactly how these advantages are passed down through hormones, egg nutrients, or epigenetic changes. This raises a key question: Is there a limit to how much heat stress fish can actually handle before resilience turns into vulnerability? Sticklebacks may be tougher than we thought, but whether this memory helps them survive real-world climate chaos is still an open question. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Dads with Double Lives! 🐦 House sparrows might look like simple little birds, but their love lives are anything but! These birds form social pairs, meaning a male and female team up to build a nest and raise chicks together. Both parents help feed and protect their young, ensuring their chicks survive. But these pairs aren’t always faithful… A devoted dad might raise chicks that aren’t his, while also sneaking off to father chicks in other nests for different males to raise unknowingly. A 17-year study on a small island of house sparrows has found that this cheating works best if you still have a stable home nest. Males who both cared for chicks at home and sired offspring elsewhere had the most lifetime offspring, while strictly faithful males and unpaired "floater" males had fewer. Unlike past studies that focused on short-term benefits, this research tracked sparrows from birth to death, proving that mixing monogamy with a little mischief is the best long-term strategy. It also confirmed that floaters (males without a stable mate) had the worst success. This might sound scandalous, but in the wild, it's all about passing on genes, not loyalty. What works for sparrows doesn’t exactly translate to human relationships, so let’s leave this one to the birds! Read more: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Stinger Personalities! 🐝 Have you ever run away from a bee that seemed determined to come after you? Was it just bad luck, or was that bee naturally more aggressive? Turns out, some bees really are more likely to sting than others! In a fascinating study, scientists tested guard bees in a mini arena with a rotating pretend threat. Over multiple trials, the same bees either kept attacking or held back, showing a consistent "stinging personality." Researchers also tested how alarm pheromones and social environment influenced stinging behavior. Bees exposed to alarm pheromones were more likely to sting, while those paired with another bee were less likely to sting than when alone. These social cues didn’t change a bee’s overall tendency, but just how easily it reached its stinging threshold. For example, a calm bee in an alarm pheromone setting might sting more often than usual, but it was still calmer than the aggressive bees in the same situation. This means their behavior stays consistent across time and social context! It turns out honeybee colonies rely on a mix of peacekeepers and fighters to keep their defenses balanced! Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Too Hot to Hatch? 🐦 Global warming is making life harder for seabirds, so the blue-footed boobies are adjusting their parenting strategy! These birds have a name that might seem unusual, but there’s a funny story behind it. Booby comes from the Spanish word bobo, meaning fool. Early sailors gave them this name because they weren’t afraid of humans and would land on ships, making them easy to catch. Their clumsy waddling and goofy courtship dances, complete with big blue feet, didn’t exactly help their reputation either! But a new study suggests they might be far smarter than we ever imagined… After tracking these birds for over three decades, scientists found that when ocean temperatures rise, booby moms adjust their hatching strategy. Blue-footed boobies usually lay two eggs a few days apart, with the second typically arriving about four days after the first. But when waters are warmer and food is scarce, mothers extend this delay even further. This extra gap gives the first chick a major head start, making it bigger and stronger by the time its sibling hatches. If food is limited, the younger chick is less likely to survive, which reduces competition and allows the mother to focus her energy on raising one strong chick instead of struggling to feed two. It sounds harsh, but this strategy helps the eldest thrive while also conserving the mother’s energy and boosting her chances of breeding again next year. With climate change warming the oceans, these moms are adjusting their hatching strategy to cope with uncertain food supplies. This calculated approach of tweaking their timing is a brilliant example of how animals adapt when the heat is on. Read more: sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @HughDrummond5 #AnimalBehavior

Dull Days Ahead? 🐦 How bright an animal looks isn’t just about genetics—color changes with age, nutrition, and environment! Researchers studied common waxbills, small birds with red bills and patches around their eyes and chests, to see how these factors affect their coloration over time. After moving the birds from the wild to a spacious enclosure with unlimited food, they noticed that the birds (especially females) became redder, suggesting that a stable environment with plenty of food helps maintain brighter coloration. However, both sexes still faded with age, with females losing red faster, particularly in their bills. Males, on the other hand, showed a surprising twist: While their bills and masks faded, their red chest patches grew larger. This could help them attract mates or be a result of older males being better at acquiring nutrients. They also tracked seasonal changes and found that their red color peaked during breeding season and faded afterward, showing that seasonal cycles also influence coloration. This study shows that a bird’s brightness might reflect their current challenges and life stages! Read more: academic.oup.com/beheco/article…

Optimism ≠ Boldness! 🐁 Are some animals naturally optimistic, expecting good things to happen, while others are pessimistic, always bracing for the worst? Scientists use the Judgement Bias Test (JBT) to see how animals interpret ambiguous situations. In this study, researchers tested whether optimistic mice take more risks when foraging under predation threat. First, they sorted mice into optimists and pessimists using the JBT. While optimism was once thought to be a temporary state, studies show consistent individual differences over weeks, suggesting it might function more like a personality trait. Then, they gave the mice a choice: a safe chamber with a small food reward or a chamber that smelled like a predator (rats!) but offered a big reward. If optimism means expecting good things, optimistic mice should have been more willing to take the risk. However, they found no connection at all. Foraging risk-taking seemed to be driven by a separate trait, possibly boldness. Optimism shapes how animals interpret uncertainty, but predator risk isn’t ambiguous, it's a survival decision! This suggests optimism may be more context-dependent rather than a broad decision-making factor. So next time you’re debating whether to eat that questionable leftover takeout, ask yourself: are you truly optimistic… or just bold? Read more: sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @MarkoBracic @louisa_bierbaum

Do Monkeys Have Self-Awareness? 🐒 Imagine a baboon in the wild coming face-to-face with a mirror for the first time. What does it think? A new friend? A rival? Or does it recognize itself? Scientists wanted to find out if wild baboons understand that their reflection is them by using a classic test of self-awareness: the mirror mark test. But instead of using paint, they got creative by using a harmless laser pointer to place small, temporary marks on the baboons' bodies. At first, the baboons were curious. Some stared at the mirror, made friendly facial expressions, or even tried to reach behind it as if checking for another baboon. Others got startled when they saw a dominant individual approach in the reflection and turned around to confirm it was real, suggesting they learned that it reflected the environment... But did they show signs of true self-recognition, like using the mirror to inspect their own bodies? When the laser mark was placed on a part of the baboon’s body that it could see directly (like their arm or leg), they often touched or investigated it. But when the laser mark was somewhere they couldn’t see without a mirror (like their cheek or ear) they never used the mirror to check or touch it. This suggests that, unlike great apes, baboons might not recognize themselves in mirrors. They seem to understand that mirrors reflect things, but they don’t seem to connect the image to their own body. What makes this study stand out is that it was done in the wild, on a large group of baboons, using a completely non-invasive method. Most mirror tests happen in captivity with small sample sizes, so this was a rare chance to see how self-recognition works in a natural setting. The results add to growing evidence that monkeys, unlike chimps and orangutans, don’t seem to pass the mirror test without training. Whether that means they lack self-awareness or just don’t care about their reflection remains up for debate! Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs… @helenreiderman @VittoriaRoatti @alecia_carter

Can Plants Recognize Their Family? 🌱 Let’s switch things up today and talk about plants! They might seem like passive, mindless organisms, just soaking up sunlight and growing wherever they land, but research suggests otherwise. A surprising discovery shows that plants can actually recognize their relatives and change their behavior depending on who’s around! In a fascinating greenhouse experiment, researchers grew yellow monkeyflower plants and surrounded them with either selfed siblings (very closely related), outcrossed siblings (still family, but not as closely related), or completely unrelated plants. Then, they observed which plants would go all out with flowers and which would invest more in clonal runners (aboveground shoots that sprout new plant clones). Surprisingly, the monkeyflowers held back when they were among family. They produced fewer flowers and fewer clonal runners, almost like they were stepping aside to avoid competing with their relatives or risking inbreeding. But when they found themselves next to strangers the switch flipped, going from cooperation to full-on competition mode! They amped up their flower production, making bigger, flashier blooms, and cloning themselves more aggressively. This study adds to growing evidence that plants can recognize kin and adjust their growth strategies accordingly. But it also raises a bigger question: could this be a sign of a deeper, more complex awareness? One that challenges our understanding of intelligence and decision-making in the natural world? As research continues to reveal the hidden sophistication of plant behavior, the line between instinct and cognition in non-neural organisms may be blurrier than we ever imagined. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…