@twigtechnology
Australian archaeologist, PhD, obsessed with tool-using animals. Steward at Skara Brae, Orkney | http://twig.technology | writing Intelligence Hallucinated with @abigaildesmond.bsky.social for Harvard Uni Press (2027) ๐๐ฆฆ๐๐ฆโโฌ๐๐ท๏ธ๐ฆง๐ด๐ ๐ชฒ๐ฆ๐ฟ๏ธ๐๐ฆ
Women can do anything, even go to space in the year theyโre born! Slight typo by @royalsociety.org, Tereshkova was born 6 March 1937.
She remains the youngest woman to orbit Earth.
๐ช ๐๐งช ๐ญ
Original paper here: www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...
I shared a few thoughts with the excellent @cjgiaimo.bsky.social for her New York Times piece on chimps and crystals.
Captive chimpanzees were keen on these glittery objects; only time will tell tell if (as the study authors suggest for hominins) they can alter the evolution of perception ๐งช๐ฎ
๐งตOur latest #LittleFoot paper is out in #Palevol! A few words about the study and what we found๐@palevoprim.bsky.social @agencerecherche.bsky.social @cnrs.fr @cnrsecologie.bsky.social @diamondlightsource.bsky.social
any primatologists hanging out around here who might want to provide comment on an embargoed paper that i'm writing up today? let me know! #primatology #primates
Photo of the top half of a greyish brown monkey yawning widely to show its large canine teeth. The blurry background is a sandy beach.
Jet-lagged and yawning like this long-tailed macaque (๐ท Koh Sam Roi Yot National Park, Thailand, October 2015)
๐งช๐๐ฆท
None come to mind for the Lomekwian or Oldowan (and whatever Dikika is). Plummer et al. summarised whatโs known in cutmarks/butchery for those eras in their Annual Reviews paper last year, although I suspect you have it already!
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
An historic black and white illustration of a paper nautilus floating on the ocean. There are boats, a city and hills in the background.
๐ Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHLโs website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more:
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran...
#BHLTransition #ILoveBHL ๐ ๐ ๐งช
The flight path of Qatar Airways QR31 on 28 February (this morning). It starts in Doha and heads northwest over Iraq and Turkey, then on across Europe to Scotland.
Checking the news and thinking the timing of my flight from Doha to Edinburgh this morning was fortunate, a few hours before bombing started. Part of a long trip back to Orkney from Australia. Hoping for sanity to prevail.
A perspective, in 2 parts:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Mind Everywhere: A Framework for Conceptualizing Goal-Directedness in Biology and Other DomainsโParts One and Two
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Our new paper is now out showing how time perception in animals is linked to their ecology. Using data from 237 species we show temporal perception is faster in species that fly and pursuit predators www.nature.com/articles/s41... ๐
Photo of a complex mechanical device fitted with sensing and lighting equipment looming in from the left towards a comparatively small pink-white octopus. One part of the machine is ominously labeled โmanipulatorโ. Both are just above a dull brown seabed.
What should we expect when the aliens arrive to study us? Probably this.
From recent work led by @kakanikatija.bsky.social - the ROV is tracking how the octopus (Muusoctopus robustus) moves 3200 metres deep in the eastern Pacific ๐ ๐งช ๐ค
Paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The second #kakapo chick of the #kakapo2026 breeding season hatched this morning: Hine Taumai-A1-2026 on Ako's nest on Te Kฤkahu. We transferred the egg from Anchor two nights ago. This is Ako's first-ever chick, which is just a few hours old in this video. #conservation #birds #parrots
A kฤkฤpล chick in a nest with an egg. Credit: Deidre Vercoe
The first #kakapo chick for four years hatched two days ago (on Valentineโs Day for those who like to anthropomorphise!). Hereโs Tiwhiri-A1-2026 in Yasmineโs nest. ๐ธ: Deidre Vercoe. www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-r... #kakapo2026 #conservation #parrots #birds
Iโm holding a paperback copy of Premee Mohamedโs superb 2024 book The Butcher of the Forest. The cover has cute/menacing creatures on a dark leafy background. Behind the book are blurry shelves in a bookshop.
The real test of a bookshopโs quality is whether it carries books by @premeemohamed.com
The big Dymocks in Sydney passes but only by the bare minimum of having The Butcher of the Forest ๐๐ฆ๐บ
Fantastic opportunity to work with us at Shark Bay Dolphin Research ๐๐ป
A bright pink dragonfly perched on a grey twig, with a blurry sandy background
Lovely hot pink dragonfly I saw in Serra da Capivara National Park, Piaui, Brazil ๐
No idea of species - I was there studying the capuchin monkeys so Iโm only sure itโs not a monkey
The next session of our transdisciplinary (biology-philosophy) seminar on Agency will take place next Wednesday. Marek ล pinka will talk about play in nonhuman animals,
and I expect it to be super cool ! ๐
More info here :
www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...
Unravelling the Palaeolithic 2026!
Join us for two days of all things Palaeolithic, Pleistocene and Early Human Origins at UCL Institute of Archaeology 19-20th June.
Call for papers is now open and tickets are on sale! Check out our website for more information.
sites.google.com/view/unravel...
Absolutely - I tried to fit research animals into the CRediT authorship system and couldnโt. Unless they can get recognition for jointly coming up with the idea for a study through their prior behaviour. For all the work Kanzi did over decades I was interested in how people ultimately saw his role
Really interesting work! Out of genuine curiosity did you consider at any point putting Kanzi in the acknowledgements, or even pushing for him to be a co-author of this study? With his abilities Iโm wondering what it might take for apes to become collaborators not subjects. Iโm not sure myselfโฆ
Without doubt Stanisลaw Lemโs Solaris. Hard to get more alien!
A kฤkฤpล on a nest with two eggs. Credit: Andrew Digby
Three more #kakapo nests found on Pukenui/Anchor Island yesterday. Here's Konini with her two eggs. We have found nests for 26 out of the 36 adult females on the island, with more to come in the next few days. It's a big year! #conservation #kakapo2026 A
A very fine octopus encountered at Fly Point (Australia) today. Like an old battleship.
Fascinating to see the considered views of actual AI expert @melaniemitchell.bsky.social put next to the ramblings of medieval military historian Yuval Noah Harari in @nytimes.com ๐ค๐บ
archive.ph/0uZJX
Fascinating to see the considered views of actual AI expert @melaniemitchell.bsky.social put next to the ramblings of medieval military historian Yuval Noah Harari in @nytimes.com ๐ค๐บ
archive.ph/0uZJX
Realistic illustration of a Seven-spot archerfish (Toxotes chatareus), and white-brown fish with black spots, shooting water into the air.
#ProjectAnimalia 787: Seven-spot archerfish (Toxotes chatareus)
I'll never get over the amazing hunting strategy of this #fish. Shooting water up to 2m to knock insects off vegetation.
#sciart #dailyart #animalart #scientificillustration #medart #illustration #animalart #sundayfishsketch #oceanart
Why donโt all animals use tools? Does tool use = intelligence?
From twigtechnology@bsky.social and my new paper: โInstead of asking what rare and essential gifts allow only certain animals to use tools, we ask: why donโt they all?โ static1.squarespace.com/static/5f620...
I'm looking for animal studies to cover again! Hit me up!
Humans being distracted by WWII saved perhaps a quarter of a million whales from being hunted and killed, as the practice ramped up to its 1960s peak.
More great work from the folks at @ourworldindata.org ๐๐งช๐
