Sam Ellis

Very excited to see our paper using historical data to infer toothed whale lifespans published this week in the Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society (@biojlinnsoc.bsky.social) doi.org/10.1093/biol... w. @darrencroft.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social @mialybkaer.bsky.social, Dan Franks

Excited to share CASE PhD opportunities supervised by me at @edinburghbiology.bsky.social & @uoe-eid.bsky.social in collaboration with @iaciac.bsky.social , @samellisq.bsky.social and the wonderful team at Woodchester Park. Please share widely and get in touch to find out more! Links to ads below.

Why do some animals have many social partners while others invest in a few strong relationships? Our new @royalsocietypublishing.org paper suggests the answer may be: it depends on the weather ☀️🌧️ 🐑 tinyurl.com/mry3mtpf

We are offering 3 #PhD positions in our Ecology of Animal Societies Department @livingingroups.bsky.social at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior - check them out! imprs-qbee.mpg.de/66685/current

Funded 3.5 year PhD🎺 The effects of gamebird release and management on the lowland ecosystems of S England Lots of fieldwork. A robust and resilient student is required. Focus on reptiles and ecto-parasites Any Qs, please DM or email me Please RT www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Thank you to everyone who signed our open letter, who sent individual letters, and supported us in many other ways. We feel incredibly privileged to be part of such an active and strong scientific community and we've written you a letter to express our thanks and to give an update on the outcome 🧡🦀

🦋 Butterfly wing patterns create motion illusions that protect them from predators! Our new study (8 years in the making) is out in Nature today doi.org/10.1038/s415... @grahancock.bsky.social @esbriolat.bsky.social @scienceanna.bsky.social @lauraakelley.bsky.social @uniexecec.bsky.social

Brilliant talk from. @libbychaps.bsky.social presenting her work on sociality ontogeny, and vigilance in rabbits at @isbe2026.bsky.social in an absolutely huge room!

Our model has advanced and we've finished the Platyrrhini (spoiler alert!) Come find me at poster 151 on Tuesday 21st at #ISBE2026 to find out how long the monkeys of Central and South America live and how we calculated it! (no really, the graph took me 3.5 days to draw - please come see it 🙏😭)

It’s out! We show that fecal cellular DNA methylation profiles provide accurate molecular clock for age estimation in wild capuchins; age-associated differences in DNAm are relevant to development, membrane excitability, and control of cell cycle. New opportunities for epigenetic study in the wild!

I and the rest of CRAB have been really deeply touched by the response to this letter- it has helped us all through some less than cheerful times here. We think it could help do even more. Thank you to everyone who has signed. And if you haven't and feel able to there is a link in the post below.

NEW RESEARCH 🔍 #Aging and early life adversity are associated with increased mortality risk. But how similar are they at the molecular level? We investigated #epigenetic profiles across tissues in macaques and you can find the full story in our @science.org article! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

CRAB Summer Bash & Croquet Tournament in the beautiful Devon "sunshine"! Congratulations to Lisa, Una, @libbychaps.bsky.social and Sophie- inaugural winners of the coveted BLUE CRAB trophy.

Does it matter whether you use focal sampling or scan sampling to collect animal behaviour data? We used simulations to find out, testing how accurate and precise each method is across a range of behaviours, study systems, and observation protocols.

We are recruiting 🌟2 postdoctoral researchers🌟 for a NERC Large Grant project on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of badger - bovine tuberculosis (bTB) interactions.

Primate Profile #27: Colombian Night Monkey Being nocturnal and socially monogamous makes these big-eyed monkeys odd among the primates. The male assumes most parenting responsibilities besides nursing, and the female will not do much else to help, even if he dies! Image: D Monroy (iNat.org)

🚨 PhD opportunity 🚨 Fully funded PhD at the University of Bristol (UK) on how ant colonies remodel their nests to optimise performance under pressure, combining experimental work, quantitative analysis, and field work. Detail/how to apply: stroeymeyt-lab.co.uk/open-positio... Deadline: 5 June 2026

📢Are you searching for a postdoc possition? Have a look to this very interesting opportunity to work with red wood ants in an amazing team! 🐜 @elvarobinson.bsky.social #postdoc #research #science #redwoodants

This project (with Stacy Rosenbaum and Nick Grebe) began in the dark days of Covid, and is finally ready to share. We've built a living database of primate paternity data (52 species, 3000 paternities) and completed first wave of analyses of paternity distribution. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I am currently building a database of primate age structures and I've realised how little I previously knew about primates. So I've decided to do a "Monkey of the Moment": each day I will introduce a new primate (not all monkeys!) with my favourite new fact about that species. Hope you enjoy! 🦧🦍🐒

CRAB Posters at #ASABSpring2026 from @helephantmylne.bsky.social , Bryony Jenkins, Eleanor Benson, Sophie Pettit , and Henry Moreau-Smith (Pictures taken in the very rare gaps when they didn't have customers)

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

Brilliant plenary from @elvarobinson.bsky.social at #ASABSpring2026 . Science! Advice! Ants! And a mention of me! In short everything you could want in a talk.

CRAB are at @asab-spring-2025.bsky.social in Bristol in strength for the next couple of days. Today @libbychaps.bsky.social presented work from her PhD on rabbit social ontogeny. More CRABers to come tomorrow!

How long do primates live? Come and find me at #ASABSpring2026 poster number 2 to find out about my model (or not if you aren't stats keen!) and how we are investigating the evolutionary causes of primate lifespan 🐒🦧

With just over a month to go until #CityNatureChallenge 2026, great to see evidence that it does actually help! We are entering Exeter for the first time so anyone who would like to help with either species recording over the weekend or IDs across the following 2 weeks would be much appreciated! 🎉

Join us in Copenhagen in June for our summer course on programming in R! - Aimed at PhD students in behavioural ecology, others also welcome - No prior programming knowledge needed Deadline for sign-up: May 1 More info here: programmingintrocph.weebly.com

Aging may feel gradual… but what if it’s not? In our recent paper, we tracked fish continuously from puberty until death. This gave us a unique view of how aging unfolds across the adult lifespan. 🧵

New paper on age-related reproductive tactics & success in humpback whales, published in Current Biology.🐳🧬 doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... #marmam @seamammalresearch.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social @emma-carroll.bsky.social @clairenea.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social 1/7

New (competition funded) PhD opportunity with me, @iaciac.bsky.social and @dralgernon.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Higher-order networks and animal communication. Suited to someone keen on network science theory/computational modeling and keen to adapt this to ecology & evolution.

A new paper in @plos.org Complex Systems from my time at @nimbios.bsky.social with Nina Fefferman. We set out some ways of classifying rules for social learning and knowledge exchange in higher-order networks. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Our new review of beluga sociality and culture just dropped at Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology! Some of our key conclusions summarized 🧵 doi.org/10.1007/s002... @marine-valeria.bsky.social @dmennill.bsky.social @raincoast.org

Charli Grimes discusses the social ontogeny of resident killer whales, exploring how lifelong social bonds form and change from early life through maturity. 🐋🤝 #UKIRSC26

We are hiring – postdoc position exploring how kinship shapes social ageing in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social and Prof Rufus Johnstone (Cambridge) starts 1st April 2026 and ends 31st March 2029. Apps close 2nd Feb. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPZ788/p...

Fully funded #PhD studentships, start Sept 2026: 1. Weaponry and aggression in wild fiddler crabs, with me, Safi Darden, Martin How tinyurl.com/weaponsPhD 2. The emotional basis of behaviour, with me, Danny Williamson, Andy Higginson tinyurl.com/emotionsPhD #AnimalBehaviour @crab-exeter.bsky.social

Our paper is published today in Current Biology and is featured on the cover! We report a neat, and somewhat counter-intuitive, finding: higher-ranking baboons get less and more interrupted night-time rest.

Late-reporting, but last year some of our CRABbers headed up to Edinburgh to present their posters at the @asab.org Winter meeting. Well done all! @libbychaps.bsky.social @charli-ocean.bsky.social and @ Manuela Carona R

Festive Season in CRAB, which we celebrate with a quiz and by rediscovering the password to the CRAB Bluesky account.

New paper out in iScience. We found the pattern of Guinea baboon meat transfers follows the shape of their nested multi-level society. Transfers of meat are more tolerant at the lower levels of the society and are more likely to occur along stronger social relationships. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

❓ Want to join us? 📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates 🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork 👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy 🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project... 🙏Share widely

MSc by Res opportunity - developing behavioural indicators to inform killer whale conservation with @exeter.ac.uk @whaleresearch.bsky.social @seadocsociety.bsky.social People from underrepresented groups in marine science encouraged to apply. Deadline 19Dec www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

Social relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*? In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts. tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7

We are hiring - PDRA position exploring how information access shapes social dynamics in killer whales. Collaboration with @samellisq.bsky.social @drwhale.bsky.social Prof Dan Franks (York) start 1st Nov (or ASAP) end 31st Oct 2028. Apps close on 19th Oct. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOT336/p...

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life? Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social) Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf... Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

Pleasure and honour to have the opportunity to discuss some of the work we have been doing on over the last few years. Thanks to @behaviour2025.bsky.social for the invite (and great conference), @asab.org for the funding and everyone who turned up to listen at 9am on day 5.

It was a real pleasure to have accidently been involved in Joe Wilde's (not here) paper published last week: doi.org/10.1098/rspb... It has terrifying Bayesian Hidden Markov Models, important insights about dynamic sexual signalling, and a robot crab called "Wavey Dave"- what's not to love?

BEHAVIOR IS THE WAY