Auriane Le Floch

Ontogenetic evidence of socially learned call sequences in Western Australian magpies Abstract. Combinatoriality is the capacity to combine discrete vocal elements into larger structures. Previously thought unique to human language, combinat

Young magpies learn to combine calls into "sentences" much like human toddlers: through listening to family and friends!

Now available to read at @royalsocietypublishing.org
@mandyridley.bsky.social @stephanielking.bsky.social @ceb-uwa.bsky.social

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Scientists studying wild sooty mangabeys in Ivory Coast have discovered that these West African #monkeys use sophisticated rules when combining their calls into sequences. Read the full #RSOS paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article... @aurianelf.bsky.social @tozbu.bsky.social

Fully funded PhD position on primate parochialism! Study how cooperation within groups and conflict between groups evolve in red-fronted lemurs at our long-term field site in Kirindy Forest, Madagascar. @kirindy.bsky.social & @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Apply here: www.dpz.eu

A screenshot of an RStudio window. On the left-hand side is a new pain called Posit Assistant. The Posit Assistant had recently run code making a lat-lon plot of Washington state, colored by whether the point had been marked as forested or not.

Today we're releasing AI for RStudio. It's really, really good—I'd encourage you to point it at the messiest data sources you have and see what it can do.

www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-03...

An ancient dog breed regulates pitch when howling with music Patel et al. show a component of human singing, the ability to coordinate vocal pitch with other simultaneous voices, exists in the howling of an ancient dog breed. This shows the ability can arise in...

“flexible control of voice pitch can evolve independently of complex vocal learning in the context of simultaneous group vocalization” (“simultaneous pitch regulation as a precursor of complex vocal learning, not its byproduct”?)
cool @currentbiology.bsky.social study led by A. Patel 🧪🎶

🐒 My first PhD chapter is out! We describe the vocal sequence repertoire of wild sooty mangabeys and show that they use combinatorial rules. Follow-up paper coming soon 👀

@taichimpproject.bsky.social @cogcompneuch.bsky.social @tozbu.bsky.social

🔗 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

The As and Bs of titi monkey linguistics: why emotional communication is not the enemy The alarm call sequences of titi monkeys (genera Plecturocebus, Callicebus and Cheracebus) have sparked important debates over whether they exhibit parallels with human language. Some researchers con...

🚨New animal linguistics paper🚨

Together with @geoffreymesbahi.bsky.social and @maelmleroux.bsky.social, we tried to finally answer this question: Do titi monkeys have complex syntactic skills?

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

New paper out👂📢🐒! We highlight the remarkable expertise of local field assistants at BCFS (Uganda) in interpreting chimpanzee pant-hoot calls—identifying who is calling, their age, sex, and context—revealing scientific knowledge built through years of experience. doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Examining combinatoriality within the pūkeko vocal repertoire Most animals use various vocalizations to communicate with others and coordinate activities. However, animals are limited in the number of sounds they…

My latest article is finally published:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

we examine how Australasian swamphen (Pukeko) combine different sounds into all the different calls. We also examine call sequences and find that calls become longer along some calling sequences

Our group at the University of Magdeburg 🇩🇪 is looking for a motivated PhD candidate to study cognitive fleixbility and uncertainty in mice within the DZPG/C-I-R-C (c-i-r-c.de). 🧠🐭
For more information, please see: www.med.ovgu.de/Karriere/Ste...

#PhDPosition #BehavioralNeuroscience

Looking for a Postdoc position and have a background in bioacoustics and animal cognition? Interested in whether other animals might have something akin to language? Join our team: www.oeaw.ac.at/en/oeaw-home...

📢 Calling all primatologists 📢

EFP2026 in Montpellier is now open for abstracts & registration!

🗓 Deadline for abstract : 13 March 2026 (before if mobility grant application)

Submit: www.alphavisa.com/efp/2026/abs...

Register: www.alphavisa.com/efp/2026/reg...

All abstracts will be accepted!

Job alert! Fully funded PhD position on the link between curiosity and cognition in lemurs at our long-term field site Kirindy Forest in Madagascar @kirindy.bsky.social & @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. This project is part of @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social.
Apply here: www.dpz.eu

Super proud of this fabulous team for challenging old comparative frameworks and rethinking what makes language language.
Read more in the thread below 👇 or here 📖😊: www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Come and join our lab! We have TWO fully funded PhD positions AND a paid field assistant opportunity in our Behavioral Ecology group @uni-goettingen.de & @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Projects will be part of @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social & @sfb1528.bsky.social!!
Details in thread. Please re-post!

Opening for PhD position (3.5 years) on

Language Evolution | Computational Modeling | Primate Communication

Joint project with @marlenfroehlich.bsky.social & @elmanubohn.bsky.social at @unituebingen.bsky.social in CRC "Common Ground".

Share, apply, or reach out for details!

tinyurl.com/y2av9hhd

📢JOB alert📢
Application for the camp manager position at the @taichimpproject.bsky.social is open now. We seek a new camp manager starting on January 1, 2026, for 2+1 years (3rd year optional) working with and for wild chimpanzees in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire.👇

emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/I...

the title slide

The last #SLE2025 talk of the workshop before the general discussion is by Auriane Le Floch, presented by @tozbu.bsky.social, on rule-based sequences in sooty mangabey vocal communication

Intentional Communication in Animals The evolutionary origins of human language are deeply intertwined with the ability to communicate intentionally. Grounded in frameworks from developme…

Our new chapter is out! 📢 Co-first-authored with @mawadafreville.bsky.social with attentive supervision of @chacanteloup.bsky.social🤗

How has intentionality been theorised in developmental psychology and primatology, and how is it studied in animal signals?🐒🦜👶 Take a look 👇 doi.org/10.1016/B978...

Reciprocal Signaling During Approaches Relates to Close Relationships Within and Between Two Primate Species — Animal Behavior and Cognition

📢New paper alert 📢
Signalling during approaches in two sympatric primates species indicates that strong fission-fusion dynamics increase challenges related to coordination and relationship maintenance, promoting signaling production and reciprocity.
www.animalbehaviorandcognition.org/article.php?...

Now published! 📝✅📢
Our review on flexibility in animal communication is out in Biological Reviews @camphilsoc.bsky.social (Open Access).
Huge thanks again to my fantastic co-authors, especially @kirstyegraham.bsky.social. It was a delight to learn from them!

📖 Read it here: doi.org/10.1111/brv....