Dr Steve Portugal, Animal Behaviour and Physiology

It’s been a busy few weeks, with various lab members spread around the world undertaking fieldwork. Marie has been in California working at the Western Foundation for Vertebrate Zoology, collecting new and exciting eggshell samples. Steph has been in Zambia working out at Claire Spottiswoode’s fieldsite, getting more metabolic data from whydah eggs. Jack and Eleanor has been based in Pretoria at Nigel Bennett’s lab, studying mole rat physiology and biomechanics.

As always we’re massively grateful to all our collaborators. And congratulations to former lab member Dan Sankey, who has just started a postdoc at the University of Exeter.

(photos taken by various members of the lab group)

We’re thrilled to welcome Hana Merchant to the lab group. Hana’s PhD will be focusing on mole rat speciation, morphology and physiology. Hana’s funded by NERC and is co-supervised by Chris Faulkes at QMUL.

I have a Primer coming out shortly in Current Biology, all about aerial flocking in birds. More to follow.

Congratulations Sam, who passed his viva with minor corrections. Many thanks to Rudy and Alex for acting as examiners.

Huge Congratulations to Dan Sankey who aced his viva and got minor revisions. And a thank you to Vincent and Alex for acting as his examiners. Dan is now off to do a postdoc at Exeter on mongoose group behaviour.

Sam has written an interesting blog on our recent paper published in Ibis, you can read about it here!

We had a fun evening out eating a lot food and enjoying some comedy. Thanks Jack for organising.

An exciting day discussing future projects and all things mole rat, with Chris Faulkes and QMUL collaborators.

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.