Franziska Wegdell
Biologist - Ethologist
postdoctoral researcher @University of Tuebingen
studying the communication of BONOBOS
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- 🧪Before the day begins, meerkats share a unique ritual. After emerging from their burrows, they spend up to an hour "sunning" to warm up for the day. During this quiet time, they produce soft, tonal "sunning calls". Just standing, sunbathing, and calling. But why❓ #bioacoustics #meerkats #kalahari
- 📢NEW paper alert: consistent #bioacoustics in coral #reef fish calls. Learning more about the 🐟🐠 #orchestra to aid our understanding of #marine #ecosystems. #PAM Led by @sharkslikejazz.bsky.social With, among others, @profstevesimpson.bsky.social @timlamont.bsky.social doi.org/10.3389/frse...
- My first PhD paper is published! 🎉 We compared how wild bonobo and chimpanzee infants (0-5.5y) become independent from their mothers. Here is the open-access link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... 🧵(1/5)
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View full threadOur results point to a mosaic: some parts of development are tightly conserved (ventral riding, nursing, grooming), while others shift with ecology, social risk, and maternal strategy. (4/5)
- A big thank you to all my collaborators, without whom this would have not been possible! @monkeyologist.bsky.social @franziswegdell.bsky.social @RaymondKatumba, @AndreasBerghänel, @MartinSurbeck, and @SimonePika (5/5)
- So, do they differ in their development? Mostly not! But we found some differences: 1. Travelling patterns: - Dorsal riding: chimpanzees longer than bonobos - Independent travel: bonobos more often (This may be a population difference though!) (2/5)
- 2. Spatial independence: Chimpanzee infants stay closer to mothers for longer. Both stay close to their mothers for long though. This may be linked to the high-risk exposure for chimpanzees and possibly differences in maternal strategies. (3/5)
- I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students. I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...
- 📢 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!
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- Congratulations to my superb PhD student Angèle Lombrey on publishing her first article in Biological Reviews @camphilsoc.bsky.social — no less! 😎🍾 Curious about individual differences in animal communicative behavior? 🐦🐬🦧Check out our open-access paper: 👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
- 📢 Come to Tübingen and get your PhD with us! Unique opportunity to explore great ape communication 🐵🦧🦍 from multiple disciplinary angles within a single, integrated project. 👇
- 📢 2 PhD positions (E13 TV-L, 75%) in our DFG-funded project on great ape communication & the evolution of common ground! 🧠 Backgrounds in biology, psychology or linguistics welcome. 🗓️ Deadline: Aug 13 🔗 bit.ly/4l8p7hy & bit.ly/46jcfAq Please share! @elmanubohn.bsky.social @meanwhileina.bsky.social
- 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....
- 🚨 New preprint! 3 years after our symposium at the EFP-GfP meeting in Arnhem, I'm happy to share a prefinal draft of our review on approaches to studying flexibility in animal communication. Thanks/Merci beaucoup to the 7 stellar presenters & coauthors who made this possible! osf.io/preprints/ps...
- 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...
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- The spotlight video for the ChimpFACS Extension for bonobos is out: youtu.be/qijxWubdyNU?...
- 📢 Our new paper is out in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social! A step toward more comparable approaches in bioacoustics! We tested how different acoustic feature extraction and classification methods affect caller ID classification accuracy. Read about it here: 🔗 shorturl.at/F31Pb
- 🐾 Just out & open access! Exploring Animal Behavior Through Sound, Vol. 2 🎶 From insects to elephants and whales—how animals use & are affected by sound. Thanks to Christiane Erbe & all co-authors (me included)! 👉 link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
- Do you have field work experience? Do you want more? Our team wants YOU to manage our field site studying Kinda baboons in Kasanka National Park, Zambia! Start date is this August 2025 so apply ASAP! Job ad here: tinyurl.com/KindaBaboon
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- 🚨 New preprint! 3 years after our symposium at the EFP-GfP meeting in Arnhem, I'm happy to share a prefinal draft of our review on approaches to studying flexibility in animal communication. Thanks/Merci beaucoup to the 7 stellar presenters & coauthors who made this possible! osf.io/preprints/ps...
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- Check out the new paper from my friend @franziswegdell.bsky.social on the beautiful #kokolopori #bonobo infants (and other primates too) 🐵
- We 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....
- New paper by our @nccrlanguage.bsky.social team w @franziswegdell.bsky.social, @carolinefryns.bsky.social , J Schick , @zuberbuehler.bsky.social, C v Schaik, S Townsend, and myself. Child-directed communication is a driver of language evolution. shorturl.at/eAfjW
- 1/n Hot off the press! The first empirical chapter of my PhD and the fruit of a hugely collaborative project led with Franziska Wegdell and Johanna Schick is out! We explore if immature-directed vocalisations are present and in what quantity in wild great apes. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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- Working with @wildcognition.bsky.social on this paper was so much fun: drawing from our research with mammals (primates & hyenas) we discuss to what extent the urban niche poses novel cognitive challenges or whether they are exapted to exploit urban resources link.springer.com/article/10.1...
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- Today we were at the radio to talk about our new book with Alban Lemasson! The first of a long series we hope!
- It’s out! Co-écrit avec Alban Lemasson: Quand les animaux prennent la parole ! Un livre grand public sur la communication animale et l’évolution du langage. En vente partout, éditions Apogée: www.editions-apogee.com/espace-des-s... A. Bensoussan en parle mieux que moi: unidivers.fr/la-culture-a...
- 🚨 New chapter alert 🚨 What can variation in great ape communication—across individuals, dyads, populations, species—tell us about language origins and communicative flexibility? 🦧🤷♂️ My latest piece w/ Carel van Schaik is out now in the OH of Approaches to Language Evolution. doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...
- Very proud to be part of this extraordinary team! What a time to be working and living in Tübingen ⚒️🐵🦧🦴💀
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- Interested in the evolution of human language and in understanding the pressures that shape languages today? Come do a PhD with me! Fully funded PhD position available in my group @mpi-nl.bsky.social, application deadline June 2nd: www.mpi.nl/career-educa...
- Incredible talk by @asab.org Christopher Barnard Award recipient @lirsamuni.bsky.social - beautiful talk that presented an impressive body of work. Research superstar 👏🏻🙌🏻
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- 🚨New in @science.org🚨 With Simon Townsend (@nccrlanguage.bsky.social) and Martin Surbeck, we have investigated whether wild bonobos can combine calls in complex combinations, similar to how humans combine words into sentences 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #ScienceResearch #AnimalCommunication
- 🐳 UPCOMING BOOK ALERT 🐬 The Evolution of Cetacean Societies Edited by @darrencroft.bsky.social @andrewfoote.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social and myself Preorder available now press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... #whale #dolphin #animalbehaviour
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- 🚨 Preprint alert 🚨 – My first PhD paper is out as a preprint! Need a break from everything happening in the world? Time to focus on #great #apes 🐵✨. We investigated whether wild #bonobo infants develop more slowly than #chimpanzee infants, but the answer isn’t so clear-cut!
- Great Ape Childhoods: Development of infant bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the wild biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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