Dr Steve Portugal, Animal Behaviour and Physiology

Very pleased to welcome Eleanor Dixon to the lab. Eleanor will be studying mole rat biomechanics, working with PhD student Jack Thirkell.

Congrats PhD student Sam Jones on getting his first PhD paper accepted (to go along with a collection of other papers). Based at the fieldsite in Honduras, all about territoriality and aggressive interactions in laughing-thrushes.

Thrilled to be elected as the co-opted member of the Animal Biology Section, for The Society for Experimental Biology. Looking forward to getting started.

Our new paper, led by PhD student Dan Sankey (Congrats Dan), is out today in Animal Behaviour, all about speed compromise in pigeon flocks! You can read it here!

Massive Congratulations Sam Jones!!!

Sam Jones

Huge Congratulations to PhD student Dan Sankey! Massive accomplishment, and in just under three years. Lots of exciting papers to come.

Thrilled to become a Scientific Associate at The Natural History Museum, London. This honorary role formalises the various work and projects I’m involved with at the Museum, and will lead to more fruitful collaborations through using the various collections for research. Very grateful to Dr Alex Bond for proposing the idea.

PhD student Rosa Gleave is busy in China, studying the critically endangered Blue-crowned Laughthrush. You can see a photo story of her current trip here!

Our new paper is out in The Science of Nature, which shows what happens to cluster flocking pigeons when they fly a long distance – they spread out. You can read it here! Congrats PhD student Dan Sankey.

To coincide with our ‘goose moon’ paper, which you can read here, I’ve written a piece for The Conversation about animal behaviour, the moon and eclipses, which can be found here! (photo, K. Witman)