Elliot Howard-Spink
@ElliotHowaSpi
Postdoc researcher at @UZH_ch. Formerly @MPI_animalbehav & @OxfordBiology | Tools & Actions, Animal Culture, Language Evo, Development & Senesence | He/They 🌈
New paper out in eLife! 🎉 Old age variably impacts chimpanzee engagement and efficiency in stone tool use elifesciences.org/articles/105411 (including videos of wild elderly chimpanzees using tools! 🪨🌰)
Excited to be a co-author on our new article “The First Million Years of Technology: The Lomekwian and the Early Oldowan” now published online in the Annual Review of Anthropology. Feel free to DM or email for a copy annualreviews.org/content/journa…
Old age likely impacts some wild chimpanzees' ability to effectively use tools 🔨 Like humans, the effects of old age vary between individuals - some struggled to use tools, others kept excellent use into later life. New from @ElliotHowaSpi in @eLife 👇 bit.ly/4kEqN1a
Then vs Now: Same chimp, same task - 17 years apart 🐒🔧 New Oxford-led research suggests that ageing can affect how wild chimpanzees use tools, though the impact varies widely between individuals. More info ⬇️
Hot off the press 📢: one of the most surprising and unsettling findings of my PhD. A novel social tradition emerged in the tool-using capuchins of Jicarón island… abducting and carrying the infants of another species. Thread with gifs, videos, and all the bizarre details 👇
Humans have many unusual traditions. But did you know animals’ strange behaviors can become culture too? Out now in Current Biology (doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.…) we document a bizarre tradition: interspecies infant abduction. Interactive timeline (ab.mpg.de/671374) 🧵(1/12)
New paper alert 🚨! Immature gibbons gradually develop their feeding behavior while taking the opportunity to socially learn from their mothers. Learn more by reading our paper! link.springer.com/article/10.100… #gibbon #ape #primates
This is awful. PrEP is life changing. It prevents you from getting HIV. Millions all over the world rely on this preventative medication to safeguard their health… and Trump is targeting them. The cruelty is the point.
New article on how dogs are using their soundboards at home is finally out! Using a large dataset (250K) of button presses by family dogs and their owners, we show that dogs’ presses are (i) non-accidental, (ii) non-random, and (iii) not mere repetitions of their owners’ presses.