Ahana Aurora Fernandez
Emmy Noether Group leader |STRI Research Associate | Research interests: Bioacoustics, Vocal learning, Social behavior, Vocal ontogeny, Neuroethology
| Bats | Hummingbirds | Dog owner | www.ahanaaurorafernandez.org
- Batnight in Gamboa Panama An important part of science is outreach. The batlab in Gamboa excells at it: so many enthusiastic researchers sharing their knowledge and findings. Proud if being a part of it! #Batsareawesome #Batnight
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezOur new paper on vocal expression of emotions (using recently published database of ungulate emotionally loaded calls: zenodo.org/records/1463...), shows that negative calls tend to have lower individuality than positive ones www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @behaveco.bsky.social
- 🔊Negative valence overrides identity information in ungulate vocalisations. Happy to share new work by @ebriefer.bsky.social Romain Lefèvre & myself authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
- Bat fieldwork 2025 well underway in Panama #batsareawesome
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezMeet our plenary speaker Renata Sousa-Lima! Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), Renata ‘s research focuses on bioacoustics of aquatic mammals and has pioneered the field of ecoacoustics and soundscape ecology in Brazil.
- Congrats to the winners of the best poster and best talk of the #gradmeeg25. But all the contributions were really stunning!! @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social @denisebe.bsky.social
- Impressions from #gradmeet25 @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social
- Also the second and third day were a full success. Days filled with amazing student talks -from bachelor to postdoc. Thanks for all your effort. #gradmeet25 @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezIn our first session of day 2 at #GradMeet25, it’s all about sending and receiving information — from chemical communication in spiders to alarm calls in monkeys. 🕷️🦇🐒 @michellebeyer.bsky.social
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezA buzzing 🐝 poster session at #GradMeet25 — great science, great conversations, great energy! ✨
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezOur 2nd session of the morning focuses on personality and flexibility — from aggression rates in lemurs to inhibition in cichlids, showcasing again the incredible diversity of behavioural research! 🐒🐀🐟 #gradmeet25 @jannesdoesscience.bsky.social @saskiasp.bsky.social
- Inspiring talk about raven sociality and cognition from Thomas Bugnyar at #gradmeet25. Impressively shows how important long-term studies and observations in the wild are! @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social
- The first day of our #gradmeet25 was filled with stunning student talks, a lot of questions and networking. Way to go!
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezKicking off our invited talks in the Behavioural Biology section! First up, @roesslerdaniela.bsky.social shares insights into spider sleep and future directions in this exciting field. 🕷️💤 Fantastic talk with amazing visuals! #DZG2025
- So excited that our #gradbehav25 is about to start! Looking forward to all the student contributions and two amazing plenary talks! @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezSomeone please call the ant ambulance! In our second invited talk, @etf1989.bsky.social highlights his research on wound care behaviour in various ant species. Another fantastic talk, with impressive videos of these behavioural displays! 🐜🐜🐜 #DZG2025
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezGreat start to our "Wildlife in Urban Spaces" symposium! This morning, two excellent speakers, @tanjastraka.bsky.social & Jannis Gottwald, shared insights on interdisciplinary approaches & the latest technical advancements in measuring and understanding human-wildlife interactions. #dzg2025
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezKicked off our first behaviour session with 6 fascinating talks—covering everything from spiders, electric fish, and fossil insects to sex pheromones and how parental behaviour shapes immunity. 🌍🕷️🐟🪲 #DZG2025 @janka-p.bsky.social @andifischer10.bsky.social @leo-theo.bsky.social
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezFrom pigeons to foxes—urban jungles are wilder than you think! We’re hyped for our Wildlife in Urban Spaces symposium, kicking off right before #DZG2025 sweeps us into 3 fantastic days of conferencing in Berlin! dzg-meeting.de/en/program/
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezAnd #DZG2025 is officially open! Great opening event at the @mfnberlin.bsky.social - what a stunning venue! We are looking forward to a great conference!
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandezsome impression from my presentation on elephant vocal learning - IBAC2025
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezNew publication from my lab: Vampyrum spectrum, the Neotropics' largest carnivorous bat, is very cooperative. These gentle apex predators regularly provide prey for family member – documented in the wild for the first time. doi.org/10.1371/jour...
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez🦇 These giant carnivorous bats hug, cuddle — and even share dinner: www.sciencenews.org/article/carn...
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez📢 Mark your calendars for the Joint Graduate Meeting of @ethoges.bsky.social and @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social! Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to showcase your research and network with peers! 📆 08.10. - 10.10.2025 🌍 Leipzig, Germany 🔗 tinyurl.com/GradMeetingA...
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezBats are underrated.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezWe studied the evolution of infant-directed communication by comparing vocal input rates across great apes! A collaborative study led by @carolinefryns.bsky.social, Johanna Schick and me; www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezOne thing that makes humans remarkable is baby talk. And that might be one reason why we have language. Here's my story [Gift link] nyti.ms/4k5duXd
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez..in the field had already been invited (and) declined to review. I used to like Frontiers for some high-quality published work and I have had positive experiences publishing with them myself. My editorial experiences though.. I do hope they take my feedback on board. (7/7)
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezOriginally posted on Twitter in 2023—reposting after a chat with a colleague about possibly publishing in an MDPI journal (whose review practices are similar to Frontiers). Not sure if either has since addressed the issues raised, but I feel process should be public knowledge.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezFor #PrideMonth , an updated reading list by @jjinsing.bsky.social via integrativeandcomparativebiology.wordpress.com/2025/06/10/w... List jayjinsing.github.io/ReadingList/ & be sure to read Jay's coauthored ICB work Cross-sexual Transfer Revisited. doi.org/10.1093/icb/... #LGTBQI #Pride
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez📅Mark your calendar for #WoCaNet2025, dedicated to connecting & empowering #WomenInScience! June 4–5 @ MPI-NAT, Göttingen.🌟Don’t miss Marieke Schölvinck, Group Leader @ ESI, on alternative models of leadership: 1+1=3: How running a lab together is more than worth it uni-goettingen.de/de/203891.html
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezDear Zoologists (in Germany)! Before leaving for your extended public holiday weekend... Consider registering for the #DZG2025 to secure the Early Bird fee. Early bird registration is ending soon.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezDo #goats exhibit prosocial motivation? This new #RSOS paper looks at insights from a novel food-giving paradigm. Read more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @goatswhostare.bsky.social @jeanlouprault.bsky.social @fbndummerstorf.bsky.social
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezBats rely on social calls to stay together, but what happens when predator recognition disrupts communication? Find out more: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #BiologyLetters #behaviour #ecology
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez🌍 Maternal behaviour affects how bat pups learn their songs.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezA collaborative work with @morceglo and G. McCracken; T. tricolor is an incredible system that helps us shed some light on 🦇 anti-predator defenses and how acoustic signal recognition mediates a trade-off between predator avoidance and social communication with ecological and social implications.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezWhy join #DZG2025? Reason #1: Outstanding plenary speakers! For example… #share #like (bio.kuleuven.be/faculty/0000...)
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezThe inaugural Coller-Dolittle Prize was awarded to the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, scientists Laela Sayigh, Vincent Janik, Frants Jensen, and Peter Tyack, for their long-term field research on dolphin whistle communication. Kudos to the whole team! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez"Dolphins call each other’s signature whistles if they get separated. Once, we played one of those whistles while the pair was still together. They responded with a totally different whistle. We call it the 'WTF whistle,' because it really did seem like that’s what they were asking." @science.org
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez“[This]finding challenges the notion of a strictly human-specific Arcuate Fasciculus morphology and suggests that language-related neural specialisation in humans likely evolved through gradual evolutionary strengthening of a pre-existing connection, rather than arising de novo” 🧪🧠 👇
- 🚨 Language connection FOUND in chimpanzees? 🧠🗣️ For years, scientists thought the key to human language was a fibre connection, missing in chimp brains. New high-res brain scans just changed the game. 👀🐒 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #Neuroscience #LanguageEvolution #Chimpanzees 1/n 🧵👇
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezCheck out the beautiful book Smithsonian Kids published about our research on babbling baby bats! Illustrated by Gavin Scott and written by Paige Towler together with the Smithsonian Bat Lab. Although it was published last year, I only received my copy a few days ago — and I’m completely smitten! ♥️
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez👋 Looking forward to the 117th Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society. Please like and share 🤩
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezREGISTRATION NOW OPEN 👋 Join us in Berlin for the Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society! Visit our website for all the details: dzg-meeting.de Early Bird offers are available—register now to secure your spot! We look forward to seeing you in Berlin. #share #like
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezMother Bats Shape Their Pups’ Voices Vocal learning isn’t just about listening—it’s about interactions! Mother bats play a key role in shaping how their pups learn to communicate, showing how important early-life interactions are. doi.org/10.7554/eLif... @eLife.bsky.social @ahanaaurora.bsky.social
- Ever wondered how baby bats learn to sing? 🦇🎶 Turns out, their moms support their practice! Our study shows that maternal feedback leads to: More vocal practice Higher song syllable versatility More mature song syllables 🔗https://elifesciences.org/articles/99474 elifesciences.org/digests/9947...
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez📢 Mark your calendars for the Joint Graduate Meeting 2025, sponsored by @ethoges.bsky.social and the German Zoological Society! Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to showcase your research & network with peers! 📆 08.10. - 10.10.2025 🌍 @unileipzig.bsky.social Abstract submission will open soon.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez📢Webinar alert📢 How do hay nets affect horse behaviour, health & welfare? 🐴 Join Dr. Marie Roig-Pons as she dives into the science of slow-feeders—from foraging to feeder design. ⏰ 5 pm CEST (NEW TIME!) 📅 April 22nd 🔗 us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
- 🎉 New year, new Applying Ethology webinars! 🐾 📅 See the schedule + past recordings: tinyurl.com/applyingetho... 🎤 Interested in presenting? Sign up here: tinyurl.com/applyingetho...
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora Fernandez🦇 We have a range of FREE resources on our website; from , education and awareness raising, leaflets, guidance for professionals and more! Explore our free resources here: www.bats.org.uk/resources
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezUsing direct, intracranial brain recordings in humans, a new study in Science finds that the thalamus, a small region located deep within the brain, plays a pivotal role in conscious perception.
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezLet me introduce our new lab homepage. www.spatial-navigation.com We are looking for PhD students and one Postdoc that can start in November 2025. Contact me if you are in to studying spatial memory of honeybees. @uni-wuerzburg.de @neuroethology.org
- Reposted by Ahana Aurora FernandezHello World! After almost a month of starting a research group - finally the announcement :) We are the 'Active Sensing Collectives' group (tinyurl.com/yckehxys) at the CASCB in the University of Konstanz. We're still growing, see PhD position ad below. @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de z.de
