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Interested in animal urbanization and human wildlife co-existence, join our team this fall 👇🏼

The annual Kalahari Research Centre conference in Zurich 2026. Always amazed by how many diverse research topics we cover at this truly unique site 🫶 @arispeshkin.bsky.social @animal-sounds.bsky.social @paniw.bsky.social @domcram.bsky.social @mathildemartin.bsky.social and all involved 🫶

🚨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...

Behavioral flexibility and its drivers in semi-urban vervet monkeysMonkeys 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?academic.oup.com

Very much impressed by the beautiful Princeton University and thankful for the invitation to Diverse Intelligence Summit 2026 hosted by the Natural and Artificial Minds center @divintelligence.bsky.social

Isn’t Fieldwork the Best when you can share it with loved ones! This week, I had the privilege to show my family the Simbithi site of the @urbanvervetproject.bsky.social

We have an open MSc Project Position at the Urban Vervet Project, and are currently looking for a motivated teammate to discover species interactions in a human altered environment 👇🏼 For more INFO👇🏼

Just have had the best “Kick-Off” to Field Season 2026 at the Kalahari Research Centre with an incredible talented team of Girl power 💪🏻 🙏🏻 Mijke, Nicole & Laura

Congratulations @krisanathema.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy ✨ I am looking forward to work with you on individuals and societies 🙌🏼

I fully second @katelaskowski.bsky.social on this aspect, science writing is defining our relationship to our work and I also think creative writing is a valuable skill for students to learn (and enjoy!). Don’t get lazy - thrive in your creativity 🤟🏼🙌🏼

This is THE Summer school you want to do: expand your knowledge and your view on intelligence whilst getting to network across disciplines and inspiring people ⭐️🤟🏼👇🏼

🚨New Paper on Bonobo and Chimpanzee tool flexibility. As so often performance is leveraged by the captivity effect yet the two species differ in explorative behavior and how readily they switch between tool types. For more 👇🏼 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article... @rachelaharrison.bsky.social

Видео

urban impacts on primate diet in areas of human co-existence - find out more in our latest paper 🐒🏡@urbanvervetproject.bsky.social Anthropogenic and Social Influences on Diet of Semi‐Urban Vervet Monkeys Using DNA Metabarcoding - Ecology and Evolution - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Investigating Anthropogenic and Social Influences on Diet of Semi‐Urban Vervet Monkeys Using DNA MetabarcodingWe used eDNA metabarcoding of faecal samples to quantify the dietary composition of two vervet monkey populations in a semi-urban environment in South Africa over a 4-month period, and compared these...onlinelibrary.wiley.com

sometimes you have to pause and just be grateful ✨for having such kind and awesome colleagues - who knows exactly what you need 🫶🏼

So proud and happy to have such an amazing field team, wishing you all a very joyful festive season with our latest Newsletter ✨👇🏼

Can’t imagine a better PhD topic 😉👇🏼 Cognitive development i. ecologically relevant settings 💪🏻

Interested in early life learning and cognitive development ? In our new pre-print we present data on developmental trajectories of three cognitive traits spanning wild meerkat pups critical life transitions 👇🏼 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Developmental trajectories of cognitive traits in meerkats match socio-ecological demandsUnderstanding cognitive development is fundamental to contextualize adult cognitive phenotypes, and thus the operational pathways for cognitive evolution. The ontogeny of specific cognitive traits is ...www.biorxiv.org

Field Activities 🙌🏼

🚨In this new Pre-print we present our findings on Monkey-Dog interactions 🐒🐕‍🦺🐒🐕‍🦺 @UrbanVervet Living with urban fear: vervet monkey response to an evolutionarily new predator www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Living with urban fear: vervet monkey response to an evolutionarily new predatorHumans have facilitated contacts between prey and predator species that have originally not co-evolved, reshuffling the prey-predator arms race. How do prey cope with an evolutionarily new predation r...www.biorxiv.org

in the beginning of September the UVP hosted a few days with our collaborators from the Sinergia project on gut-microbiom axis & behavior. Looking forward to see what the urban diet reveals in terms of health 🐒🍕🐒 @UrbanVervet Project @SimbithiEcoEstate

The Urban Vervet Projects educational work is featured in local South African news 🐒 Thanks Stef 🙏🏻 www.citizen.co.za/north-coast-...

Simbithi study reveals health crisis in urban monkeys caused by human food | North Coast CourierExperts warn against feeding monkeys as human food is doing more harm than good.www.citizen.co.za