In today’s installment of the podcast, I’m really excited to share a fascinating conversation I had with Dr. Tecumseh Fitch about the evolution of cognition and communication.Tecumseh Fitch is Professor of Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna where he co-founded the Department of Cognitive Biology and plays a leading role in the radically interdisciplinary Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, where they gather biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and computer scientists, and mix them with linguists, philosophers and musicologists to really understand cognition and communication in its broadest sense.But more than that, Tecumseh Fitch is an icon in the fields of cognitive biology and language evolution - he literally wrote the textbook on the The Evolution of Language. His mastery of these topics are on full display in this conversation, as are his storytelling skills. “one way of seeing cognitive science is it’s the triumph of mentalism over behaviorism” (Tecumseh Fitch)We ended up with a rich tapestry of insights into how language and cognition evolved, how they shape the lives of animals across the spectrum - from bees to naked mole rats to chimpanzees - and how they’ve set the scene for our own human experience.So, if you want to hear us meander from American Civil War generals to the question of why dogs can’t dance, or find out why macaques could anatomically ask questions like “will you marry me” but to my knowledge are not known to have ever done so, then stick around for the next hour plus and I guarantee you will not be disappointed.Other topics in this interview include:call production (vocal) learningHoover the Talking Sealthe evolution of musicality, singing and rhythmicitygreat ape language projectsAI and animal communicationOn Darwin and why it has taken so long to accept the idea of animal mindsGeneral William Tecumseh Sherman and Tecumseh Sherman Fitch II always learn a lot through the conversations I have for The PrimateCast, but I gotta say that this one had me cognitively locked in. I hope it does the same for you. Related episodes: (#72) A conversation about what music means to us, and monkeys, with Dr. Charles (Chuck) Snowdon(#23) Conversations about Communication from the 74th Annual Congress of the Japan Society for Animal Psychology.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

For this episode, I sat down in the studio with evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Laura Buck in the Research Centre for Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology of Liverpool John Moores University.Dr. Susumu Tomiya of CICASP also joined the conversation.After waxing on the plausibility that some ancient hominins in cold climates might have hibernated - spoiler alert! Not very - Laura describes the evolutionary and developmental processes that lead to adaptations and behavioral responses to the cold. We talk about human cold adaptation and how they relate to those of Neanderthals, and how patterns emerge to help species thrive in thermally-inhospitable places.Laura describes her current research, and how scientists might have overlooked a potentially critical evolutionary force among mammals: hybridisation. We touch on the idea of genetic rescue for conservation, and whether the "grolar bear", a hybrid between grizzlies and polar bears, might - and that’s a controversial might! -  might allow polar bear genes to survive climate warming in the arctic. Laura’s work on hybridisation has focused on macaques, but she argues that what we learn from studying hybrid macaque bones can help us understand many of the mysteries of evolution. She touches on the modern techniques used in geometric morphometrics - simply put, measuring bones in cool ways to understand evolutionary processes - including the future role of AI in the process. Laura closes with the idea of niche construction, where it’s not only how we and other species adapt to the environments around us, but also how we change those environments ourselves, leading to the conclusion that in many ways we are responsible for our own environments of evolutionary adaptedness.Other topics covered in the interview:Non-adaptationist explanations and just-so stories in human evolutionFieldwork fails with technology in scanning and measuring bonesNasal air conditioningclimate adaptations comparing prehistoric humans in Japan with Japanese macaquesHybridization and evolution of the primate pelvisAs the Northern hemisphere gears up for the winter, remember that we all have some physical and many behavioral adaptations to the cold. But, if you’re unsure, hey, maybe you can just hibernate…The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

In today’s lecture, Dr. Paula Pebsworth joined us from her home in Texas to give a lecture titled “You never know where life will take you: an interdisciplinary and unconventional path”. This lecture was extra special for me, because Paula and I were grad students together at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute over a decade ago, both under the supervision of Mike Huffman. I’ve missed my friend over the intervening years, along with her family - who also play a feature role in her talk - so it was wonderful getting back together for this event.Apart from the normal dose of nostalgia that such reunions can bring, I was reminded of what we lost when the Primate Research Institute was restructured in the spring of 2022 - a place where minds met and grew together, where budding and rooted primatologists alike were mixed and incubated and sent off to do amazing things wherever life after PRI took them.And what an interesting life Paula has had, both before and after her time in Japan. Paula is an independent scientist who has had professional roles as a Research Coordinator for Wildcliff Nature Reserve in South Africa, a Post-doctoral Research Associate and adjunct associate at the National Institute of Adv. Studies in Bangalore, India, a Scientific Coordinator at Cloudbridge Nature Reserve in Costa Rica, and a head scientist for an environmental consulting firm in Saudi Arabia.Through it all, she has worked toward tackling the monumental challenge of managing human-nonhuman primate conflict and coexistence, the topic she spends most of the lecture covering in tantalizing detail.But would you imagine that she started out her professional career as a chemist testing wine in the California vineyards? It doesn’t seem obvious, but Paula manages to weave this background into her studies of antiparasite strategies and self-medication in chimpanzees and baboons.And no, she wasn’t getting her subjects drunk on wine! But you’ll have to stay tuned to find out how it all makes sense in the career of this thoughtful and innovative primatologist.Now, Paula is just about to pack up and head over to Japan herself in a few days, for an event where she’ll be speaking about human-nonhuman primate coexistence at Kyoto University. I can’t wait to meet up with her there and catch up.Paula has also agreed to follow this lecture up with a proper conversation for the primateCast, so stay tuned for part two in the near future. I took a lot of notes during her lecture and have a lot of things to follow up on.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

In today’s origin story, Dr. Colin Chapman joined us over Zoom from his home on Vancouver Island to talk about, quote, “A Few Fun Things I have Learned Studying Primates". Colin Chapman has a whole bunch of titles that are worth a quick once over: he is a Killam Research Fellow, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a fellow at Humboldt Foundation, a Wilson Fellow, holds an Office of an Academician, Northwest University, Xi’an, China and is a Conservation Fellow with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He’s also received a humanitarian award from the Velan Foundation.Colin recently moved to Vancouver Island University to spend more time on his conservation efforts in and around Kibale National Park Uganda, where he’s spent so many of his years as one of the world’s most prominent primatologists.In the lecture to follow, Colin unpacks what he’s learned about primate population dynamics over 34 plus years at Kibale. He talks about deforestation, bushmeat hunting and climate change, and importantly how research can allow us to make predictions about how these anthropogenic threats might affect primates in the future. Colin closes with a series of take home messages like how it’s ok to make mistakes along the way, how scientists in more developed nations should use our privilege to focus on capacity building to support researchers in less fortunate circumstances, and why making sure to have fun is the key to longevity as a researcher. Other topics that come up include:health and conservation and the mobile health clinic he spearheaded to support  local communities in Ugandahow primate foraging might actually make the food landscape worse for themselves over timehow colobus biomass is tightly linked to plant food qualitywhile at the same time global change can lead to declines in food quality (paywall) for those very same primatesyet their populations may not suffer the dramatic losses we expectFor anyone interested in hearing more from Colin, he was also on the podcast in Episode 39, where I asked him to reflect on then 26 years of research and conservation at Kibale.We hope you enjoy this take from one of the world's leading primate scientists!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

In this episode of The PrimateCast origins, we’re sharing a lecture from primatologist and cognitive ethologist, Patricia Izar from the University of São Paulo. Pat is one of the eminent Latin American primatologists, and along with her close friends and colleagues Drs. Dorothy Fragaszy and Elisabetta Visalberghi - see episode #68 for more on this from Elisabetta Visalberghi - she’s been studying the incredible tool use behavior of robust capuchins for the past few decades.Capuchins are one of the very few non-great ape primates that are known to commonly use tools in nature - they use stones and anvils to crack open tough nuts and aquatic invertebrates (Paywall).Pat walks us through a series of fascinating experiments with these charismatic monkeys - who by the way you can hear make a series of audio-only cameos in the background while she shows our Zoom audience some videos. Her target? Trying to understand what they know about the tools they use and what benefits they gain from using them.Check out a short documentary about the EthoCebus project, of which Pat is a key member. Because of her long history of observing and experimenting with wild capuchins, she challenges the idea from laboratory experiments with captive-reared individuals that capuchins don’t  understand how or why the tools they use work; a commonly held belief that, unlike humans, monkeys don’t really have a strong sense of the ‘folk physics’ underlying their behavior.Other topics that come up:selecting the best tools to use what environmental factors affect when and how capuchins use toolshow using tools might affect social relationshipsthe nutritional benefits of tool use in different seasonsHave you ever wondered how heavy those stones are?playing with perception by providing huge stones that are light as a featherPat ends by talking about how this iconic behavior in capuchins can tell us a lot about the evolution of tool use in humans. By studying animals like capuchins, we can learn a lot about the kinds of conditions that are likely to have fostered this cognitively demanding behavior during our evolution.Although she doesn’t mention it in the lecture, Pat is also a key figure in the profession and development of primatology, both locally in Brazil and internationally. She is currently the President of the Brazilian Society of Primatology, and serves the International Primatological Society as its VP for Education.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

In this episode, comparative cognitive scientist Dr. Reggie Gazes and my office neighbor Dr. Ikuma Adachi.Reggie is an associate professor of psychology and animal behavior at Bucknell University in Lewisburg Pennsylvania. She and Ikuma overlapped as trainees in the lab of Dr. Robert Hampton at the now-named Emory National Primate Research Center.Listen to Rob in episode 20 of the podcast on mental time travel and metacognition. In the interview here, we find out how her experiences in Rob’s lab translated into Reggie’s own approach to being a teacher-scholar at Bucknell University. Since a large part of what Reggie does involves engaging, supporting and doing research alongside undergraduate students, I thought it fitting to ask for their input in designing the interview, which can be thought of as a sort of collaboration with them. Along with Reggie riffing on Bunny the dog, teaching students like she trains her monkeys, and - spoiler alert! - why she won’t go to karaoke with her students, we talk at length about the nuts and bolts of doing comparative cognitive science, and particularly in the context of animals in social groups.Some key studies done by Reggie and her lab mates that are a great primer for this conversation include her work on factors influencing touchscreen work in rhesus macaques and how social networks predict learning outcomes in capuchins. She really gets across in our conversation just how important it is to consider the rich social lives of animals when trying to design cognitive tests and understand how they think and why.These are the kinds of things that would really matter to individual primates living under natural conditions, so it was great hearing Reggie’s thoughts on how this type of cognitive experimentation was gaining more and more traction, despite its many challenges!Other topics covered in the interview:TikTok's Bunny the dogpeanut butter sandwichesmentorship and role modelsteaching and scholarshipimposter syndrome and the importance of collaborationFor more on Reggie Gazes and the 'Awesomeness' of her work, check out the Comparative Cognition & Behavior at Bucknell lab. The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

In this episode of The PrimateCast origins, we’re sharing a lecture given by wildlife biologist and conservationist Dr. Ian Redmond, OBE.Ian is renowned for his work with gorillas and elephants in Africa. Through research, filming, ecotourism, and conservation science and activism, he’s spent over 40 years cultivating the wisdom and the network needed to inspire and incite real change. In this lecture, Ian weaves an engaging tale around his experiences. His wonderful storytelling might make you feel, as I did, like you’re part of the story. And I think that’s one of Ian’s main points; that all of us are part of nature’s story and importantly can be part of its protectorate in lots of different ways.His stories move effortlessly from African villagers to conservation icons to world leaders, and you get the sense that Ian is at home amongst all of them, never losing sight of the ultimate goal of protecting the planet and its diverse inhabitants. He jokes about how he got himself to Karisoke research station to study gorillas by offering to fix Dianne Fossey’s leaky roof. And even has some fun stories about Sir David Attenborough during his filming for the iconic BBC series Life on Earth. But its his descriptions of his time in the forests, with the gorillas and elephants, with the local people that live alongside them, which really sparks in us that sense of what might be lost if we fail to act on behalf of the Earth.To that end, Ian leaves us with some ways to support conservation efforts, including some of the initiatives he’s been directly involved in over the years. Here’s where you might be surprised to learn about blockchains for elephants! But it all seems to be part of the bigger picture of finding ways to assess the economic value of the ecosystem services species like elephants and gorillas provide, as the true gardeners of the forests.It’s easy to get swept away by Ian’s easy nature, engaging rhetoric, and just his plain old dude with interesting stories vibe. But you’re going to learn a lot listening to this lecture.Other topics covered and links to related organizations:virtual ecotourism through vEcotourismnon-profit nature documentaries at Ecoflixholistic natural capital and nature credits with Rebalance EarthGreat Apes Survival PartnershipIntergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)conservation issues in Africa: bushmeat, materials extraction, deforestation, civil war, poachingMy favorite quote from this episode: "I am vibrating to elephant rumbles in a cave 160m under the ground in total darkness” [Dr. Ian Redmond, OBE]The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

In this episode, conservationist, author and founder of The Orangutan Project, Leif Cocks. Leif is a tireless conservationist who seems to be involved in innumerable conservation projects throughout Southeast Asia, but most notably The Orangutan Project, which he founded in 1998.We talk about Leif’s path to conservation, which began early on with an interest in animals and nature and was formalized through his experiences in higher education and work in husbandry and small population biology at Perth Zoo. What really stands out in this conversation is Leif’s passion for and commitment to being a defender of the natural world and all the beings living in it. We get into orangutan conservation, including what he views as the pillars of successful orangutan reintroduction - physical health, mental health, social skills, and forest skills.Leif describes how  The Orangutan Project operates, emphasizing the importance of collective action and going far beyond just orangutan conservation into preservation of entire ecosystems and supporting local human communities living therein.He also deftly describes the real challenges involved in conserving the rainforest’s megafauna, from supporting the endearingly “bat shit crazy” folks who manage to translocate elephants to safe areas, to getting people emotionally connected to the species and ecosystems that need saving.I really appreciated Leif’s ability to unpack the nitty gritty of running a successful conservation effort, and the efforts they’ve made to assess the progress of the various initiatives they’ve sponsored. We close out the conversation with some moral questions about personhood in nonhumans and the value of captivity for conservation at places like zoos.Other topics we discuss:orangutans and conservation translocationsanimal cultureecotourism to connect people with natureTinder meets Uber for elephant conservation!Notable quotes from Leif:on orangutans - "they're self aware persons that don't belong in captivity"conservation needs "loving kindness and intelligent action"on conservation challenges - "For every complex problem in the world there’s a simple solution which is absolutely wrong”If you want to find out more about Leif, his personal story and his work, you can find him at leifcocks.org or through The Orangutan Project website. He’s also the author of three books: Orangutans and their Battle for Survival, Orangutans: My Cousins, My Friends, and Finding Our Humanity. And check out episode #14 in season 1 of the Talking Apes podcast. Check out his socials at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.For the 21st international primatology lecture we invited  Dr. Fred Bercovitch to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on May 10, 2023.Fred was a professor with us in CICASP from 2010 until his retirement in March 2017. He was a key mentor for me and played a big role in helping our international program mature. Starting his career studying primates and particularly the sexual behavior of baboons at Gilgil, Kenya, Fred's career meandered through developmental biology and reproductive neuroendocrinology of rhesus macaques at Cayo Santiago , mating behavior in Koalas in Australia, social structure of Giraffes in Zambia, and many more topics and species around the world. Fred also forged a career integrating work at zoos and in the wilds, having spent time at San Diego Zoo's Conservation Institute. After leaving Japan, he helped launch a non-profit for giraffe conservation called Save the Giraffes, and is now a Board Member with the Anne Innis Dagg Foundation, also tackling giraffe conservation.Two books that defined Fred's  journey were Edgar Rice Burroughs'Tarzan of the Apes and Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He weaves these into his life's work describing how he went from the 11 year old boy whose essay on the need to save our planet - part of which he reads in the show! - was not selected by his teachers to be read at graduation, to the renowned wildlife biologist and conservationist he is today.Key topics that come up along the way are:the importance of understanding Darwin's ideas on evolution for conservationbaboon and koala sexgiraffe social bonds and behaviorListing of endangered species in IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species - and getting giraffes on it!It was great to have Fred back in touch with us, and I'm happy to share his wise words with all of you on the podcast. For other episodes of The PrimateCast where Fred appears, check out #2 with the CICASP team and #63 with Chia Tan.And just fThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode features a conversation with Devan Schowe, Campaigns Associate with animal advocacy and wildlife nonprofit, Born Free USA. Born Free USA, and its parent Born Free, are charitable organizations advocating for animal welfare and compassionate conservation, with the ultimate goal of ending human exploitation of animals for any reason. In the interview, Devan outlines the history of the organization - it has a very Hollywood origin story! - and all of the twists and turns that brought her to it.  Devan’s profile can be found on the Born Free USA website’s About Us page. She is an experienced primate caregiver and animal welfare specialist with a master’s degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University. We talk about some of her early experiences investigating the welfare of reptiles, and then about her master’s research on the welfare of coconut harvesting pig-tailed macaques in Thailand (published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science).  As Campaigns Associate, Devan is involved in many of the programs at Born Free USA, for example on the primate pet trade and the issues surrounding the fur trade in the USA.  For more about the primate pet trade in the USA, read Born Free USA's report (Public Danger, Private Pain: The Case Against the U.S. Primate Pet Trade) and watch a documentary on Life After the Pet Trade. Devan also talks about how people can get and have gotten involved in animal protection. To find out more, check out Born Free USA's activists toolkit.We also get a bit into the legislation of animal protection in the US, and later talk about the ethics of animals in captivity, particularly at places like zoos which have a bit of an embattled reputation these days over whether their efforts to educate the public and conserve wildlife outweigh their struggles at times to provide quality welfare for all of their animals. Other topics we cover in the interview: what does the role Campaigns Associate at an animal advocacy group look like?tracking social engagement for animal welfare and the Tiger King effectJapanese macaques living in Texas!compassionate conservationleopard geckosand more ...Devan is clearly passionate about animals and their conservation and welfare, and exceptionally knowledgable about animal issues in the USA. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, and learn from it as I also did!Note: The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.For the 20th international primatology lecture, we invited Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka to join us and speak about her own origins, as a primatologist and wildlife veterinarian, the first in Uganda, and the story behind Conservation through Public Health (CPTH) and Gorilla Conservation Coffee. The conversation was recorded on Wednesday, April 5, 2023.In the talk, Dr. Gladys moves from describing the events in her childhood that foreshadowed her career as a conservationist and wildlife veterinarian through the development of her career and efforts to conserve the endangered mountain gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda, largely by supporting the health of people living in the area. Topics covered include:her new memoir, Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet (pick up a copy!)being a wildlife vet for endangered gorillas and when to interveneecotourism for conservationwhy health and economic stability is key to successful conservation of speciesbuilding the African Primatological Society to support African efforts for research and conservation of African primatesDr. Gladys also recounts how devastating the COVID-19 pandemic was ecotourism in the region, and how she and others mobilized to ensure that the local community was vaccinated and had access to personal protective equipment such as masks and  medical support so that the risk of transmission to the gorillas was minimized. I found these stories incredibly inspiring, and endlessly insightful. Dr. Gladys’ passion for people and nature comes out in spades, and her model for conservation is one I’d love to see adopted all over the world as it has found a way to succeed through compassion for all beings involved, human and gorilla alike. Enjoy!Photo Credit: Jo Anne McArthurThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Tesla Monson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Western Washington University. Tesla was in Japan visiting our own Dr. Susumu Tomiya to start some work with our collection of primate bones, so I asked Susumu to join us in the studio as well. Tesla runs the Primate Evolution Lab at Western Washington University, and has conducted some fascinating research into how we can use bones and fossils and especially teeth to understand the “squishy parts” of our collective evolutionary past that don’t preserve, like the life history traits of an animal or its behavior. Tesla tells us about some of her discoveries about correlated or patterned evolution that link tooth characteristics with other anatomical and physiological processes and allowed her and her colleagues to hypothesize about things like life history traits and behavior that aren’t preserved in the fossil record. These include how dental patterns correlate with vitamin D delivery to infants in ancient populations of humans living in Arctic Beringia, or with prenatal growth rates and endocranial volume in catarrhine primates.After hearing Tesla talk about these things I became a lot more interested in teeth myself, and what they can tell us about extinct species! But there’s a lot in this interview beyond teeth for anyone interested in evolution and the diversity of life, how scientists are often just like detectives, and just generally about being a whole person.While discussing Tesla’s efforts in science communication, we talk about the phenomenon of imposter syndrome, which can affect anyone in any role but seems to be particularly common among academics, and especially in early career researchers. All three of us seemed to have something to say on the topic, as it’s an ongoing struggle for so many of us and any encouragement and open discussion about it may land with someone in need at the right time. We close by looking at her current projects on inclusion in and out of science, such as her symposia in Integrative Human Evolution, geared toward early career researchers and interdisciplinarity, her involvement with the Bearded Ladies, who are out there to show the world that, to quote Tesla, “You don’t have to have a beard to be a scruffy paleontologist out in the field”, and her efforts to highlight the key roles played by historical women in Washington, which she calls Washington Women.Some other things that come up in the interview  include:Tesla’s study about teeth, prenatal growth rates and endocranial volumeTesla’s coauthored study about teeth, mammary gland anatomy and vitamin D deliveryThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

“You should always collaborate with your friends!” - Sarah BrosnanIn this episode I am really excited to be able to bring to you an interview with Dr. Sarah Brosnan, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Philosophy and Neuroscience in the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. Dr. Ikuma Adachi,  from Kyoto University's Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior, also joined us for the interview.Sarah Brosnan is probably best known for her work on inequity aversion in primates. Her early experiments published in Nature [Monkeys reject unequal pay] showed that capuchin monkeys are sensitive to what others receive for the same amount of work and reject unequal pay. Note that the video of these experiments is absolutely delightful and should be required viewing for every student of nature, the nature of the mind, and probably bratty child out there. Check it out here: capuchin monkey fairness experiment.In the interview, Sarah explains how inequity aversion is likely a key component of social knowledge, and likely evolved as a suite of abilities linked to prosocial behavior.After discussing some of the nuts and bolts of experimentation and the challenges of interpretation, we move into Sarah's more recent line of research: comparative experimental economics.What's fascinating about this work is that Sarah is testing multiple different species of primate - capuchins, macaques, chimpanzees, and humans - by setting them up with more or less identical experimental situations. These experiments are really allowing Sarah and her colleagues to learn the mechanical foundations of how we make decisions; and how they may be the same or very different foundations to those of other species even when the outcomes - like being able to maximize the payoff in any given game -  look exactly the same!I learned a lot from Sarah in this interview, and had an absolute blast with this conversation! I hope you all enjoy this interview with Dr. Sarah Brosnan as much as I did.Other topics discussed in the interview:“Let the monkeys show you the way” as a foundation for scientific discoveryMaximizing interpretability through well-designed experiments … and follow-ups! How widespread inequity aversion is in the animal kingdomWhether spite is likely among the suite of emotionally-driven behaviors available to animalsGetting into the weeds with games for game theoristsBeing careful not to confuse cause and consequence as mechanism and outcometesting cognition in group settings and all the chaos that bringsOne final thought. At 24:14 of the interview, Sarah mentions a 2023 paper that demonstrates that bonobos are sensitive to inequity (Paywall). The author, whose nameThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.Unlike our normal format for these lectures, in which our guests normally provide us with an origin story lecture, we instead ran IPLS 18 as an interview with Distinguished Professor Emeritus Dr. Frans de Waal. Frans almost needs no introduction, but you can find out more about him through some links to Emory University here and here, and on his Wikipedia page here.  The interview was conducted by Dr. Michael Huffman and yours truly, with a smattering of questions from participants, including students and postdoctoral researchers affiliated with Kyoto University’s program in primatology and wildlife science.The conversation was recorded on Wednesday, January 18, 2023.In the interview, we talk about:his book Chimpanzee Politics and communicating science and writing popular booksEnglish, writing and storytelling as a non-native English speaker, and extending rigorous scientific research into popular science prosethe responsibility of scientists to communicate their findings when they relate to society and how their ideas might be coopted for certain agendas end users may have - think Konrad Lorenz falling in with eugenicists or Richard Dawkins calling us 'slaves to our genes'primate culture and empathy for Japanese primatologyhow our views of the pillars of primate society have evolved from competition, aggression, dominance and conflict to peacemaking, conflict resolution and cooperationdrawing the line between anthropomorphism and anthropodenial, and what components of animal cognition and emotion overlap with those of humanshow measuring emotions in animals is not the same thing as understanding their 'feelings', for example grief, which was asked about by an audience memberand much, much more!An here is that video of Frans hugging a Telenoid! It can't be missed!Enjoy!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode is all about where, how and why primates got their names! No, we won't be talking about popular primates like Kanzi the bonobo or Pan-kun (if you're in Japan), but rather the terms we use for the common and scientific names of primates across their taxonomy.Dr. Elaine Guevara is a Lecturer in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, and in 2021, she coauthored a study published in the International Journal of Primatology called “Whom do primate names honor: rethinking primate eponyms” (Open Access), along with Chloe Chen-Kraus, Casey Farmer, Katherine Meier, David P. Watts & Jane Widness.-----------Eponym (noun): one for whom or which something is or is believed to be named.-----------In the interview, we do a deep dive into primate names and the various contexts within which they are given. Key topics of discussion include:colonial roots of primate naminghonorifics, hero worship and challenge of getting it rightdecolonizing science and having dialogues toward greater inclusivity in science and societyVerreaux's sifaka, Geoffroy's spider monkey, Dian's tarsier and the Bemaraha woolly monkey (a.k.a. Avahi cleesei), whose epithet (species name) honors John Cleese!pronunciation and the challenge of Anglicizationbetter ways to name as conceived by the international primatological community-----------CORRECTIONAt 1:00:02 of the interview Elaine notes that the term 'maias' - suggested by JM Rubis (2020) to replace the established common name orangutan - is an indigenous Malay term, when in fact it is the term used by the Iban, a group indigenous to the island of Borneo.-----------For more information, and to contribute to understanding primate names and what we should do about them, explore these links!Primate Eponyms website - learn more about primate namesakes and contribute if information for your species is missing!Survey for primatologists (at all career stages!) where you can provide your thoughts on primate eponyms. CLICK HERE!The orang utan is not an indigenous name: knowing and naming the maias as a decolonizing epistemology (Paywall) by Jane M. Rubis (2020).Decolonizing the Ourang-Outang (Open Access) by Maeve Fairbanks,  Luke D. Fannin & Nathaniel J. Dominy (2022) published in the International Journal of Primatology.The family that built aThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.For the 12th international primatology lecture we invited distinguished professor Dr. Mewa Singh to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on May 25, 2022.-----"One need not have a formal degree in a discipline, to become a specialist in that discipline"-Mewa Singh, 2022-----Dr. Mewa Singh is Life-Long Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Excellence at the University of Mysore. Throughout his career he has investigated the behavior and ecology of mammals, most notably primates, and has been heavily invested in their conservation and management in different regions throughout India.In this lecture, he describes his activities related to the conservation of primates in India, particularly through distinctions between forest-dependent species and others that are more adaptable to human-dominated landscapes. He then describes various behavioral adaptations that have allowed more commensal macaque species to thrive in urban settings.Key topics that come up are:genetic diversity in lion-tailed macaques with respect to habitat fragmentationprotecting habitat and regrowing wildlife corridors with rainforest treesprimate commensalism and behavioral plasticity in urban environmentsacquisition of novel foraging strategies as adaptations to extracting human resourcesHe begins the lecture talking about how he became a wildlife biologist and primatologist, and that it wasn't exactly a straight line or so predetermined from a young age. And he closes with some further advice about studying primates ethically in human landscapes. In between, he provides numerous pieces of advice and bits of wisdom that will no doubt have value for all listeners. Enjoy!. The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode features paleoanthropologist and science educator Dr. Briana Pobiner.Briana works in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She is also Associate Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at George Washington University. Briana’s anthropological research focuses on understanding the human diet, and changes therein over the past few million years. Her work on science education and communication focuses on promoting understanding of evolution through examples from our own bushy branches of the evolutionary family tree. In the interview, we cover a range of topics including:the question "what makes us human?"reconstructing the diets of our ancestors using paleontological 'time machines'ancient hominins sharing the savannas - and food? - with ancient carnivoresbusting some common myths, like the idea of linear evolution and the 'paleodiet'balancing doing, teaching and communicating science to broad audienceshow to go about becoming a strong communicator of scientific ideasbeing a mom in the field with kidsThere is so much in this interview for everyone, and we couldn't be happier to be sharing it on The PrimateCast. Here are a few links to help you learn more about Briana Pobiner and her work:Briana's professional bioBriana's research websiteAnswer the question "what does it mean to be human" yourself on the Smithsonian Human Origins Program’s website A brilliant 2016 paper on accepting, understanding, teaching and learning evolution in the USBriana's academic page on GWU's websitePhoto Credit: SmithsonianThe PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field. The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there. For the 8th international primatology lecture we invited Dr. John Mitani to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on January 27, 2022. -----"If you find good [mentors], lean on them"-John Mitani, 2022-----John Mitani is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, who has conducted over 40 years of research on gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. He is the 2022 recipient of the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. And, listening to his lecture really gives one a sense of why! So much of his work found its way into the textbooks.In the lecture, he shares many of the key discoveries he and his colleagues have made about social behavior in primates. These covered topics like:territoriality and indices of home range defensibility how ape vocalizations play a role in territorial defense and spacinghow male orangutans can have hugely different mating strategies that coincide with huge differences in body size and other physical featureshow chimpanzee social behavior and alliances are determined by genetic relationships among malesHe then goes on to provide some sage advice for any up-and-coming scholars out there. He spends a good deal of time acknowledging his mentors, and implores all of us to do the same. He also acknowledges the importance of serendipity, and the need to be opportunistic in the face of new observations. With eloquence and humility, John tells us the story of his career, in the hopes it can provide some inspiration to those of us out there on similar paths. One thing's for sure: I sure felt inspired after hearing him speak!The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode features distinguished primatologist Dr. Charles Snowdon, or Chuck Snowdon, as he’s maybe better known by. Chuck is Hilldale Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and he’s widely known for his work on primate social development, communication and cognition. He ran the Snowdon Primate Center in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where so much was learned about the small Neotropical primates known as marmosets and tamarins. In the interview, we deep dive one specific topic that Chuck has worked on over the past couple of decades: musicality in nonhumans! Some of our topics of conversation include:the integration of art and science, STEAM, and collaborating with musicianshow our appreciation of music evolves and affects our moodmaking music for monkeys... and why it mattersand many more!Here's a great quote from Chuck from a 2009 article published in the Guardian: “Why should a tamarin find our music comforting? I find the monkey music quite irritating.” You can read the paper on which a lot of our conversation was based in an article published in the journal Biology Letters (Paywall). There's also more music for tamarins in the supplementary material of that article as well!In the interview, Chuck also references Snowball, a cockatoo who became YouTube famous for its ability to dance to the beat of popular music. This bird was also the focal point of our conversation with Dr. John Iversen, another fascinating conversation I had when he visited Japan for the Japan Society for Animal Psychology conference back in 2014. He's the middle interview in The PrimateCast 22.The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.

This episode presents an interview with Dr. Pamela Asquith, and anthropologist and meta-primatologist who has studied how primatology was done historically in Japan, and tackled the challenge of language, metaphor and anthropomorphism in science.In March 2022, she delivered an excellent talk for CICASP in our International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives in the Field. You can find a link to that event here, or go straight to the CICASP YouTube Channel and find it here. The interview is not a carbon-copy of the lecture, so I'm sure one can find value in both!Pam Asquith is currently adjunct professor in Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, but perhaps spent the bulk of her career in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. Pam is perhaps best known around here as the person who translated - with support from colleagues in Japan - Kinji Imanishi's seminal 1941 book Seibutsu no Sekai 「生物の世界」into English, under the title: "A Japanese View of Nature: The World of Living Things". Imanishi is considered a founder of Japanese primatology- he set up Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute itself! - and was especially instrumental in giving it the flavor it had that set it apart from primatology as it emerged somewhat independently in the West. Some of the topics we cover during the conversation include:understanding primatology through the lens of history and philosophy, and how Eastern and Western cultural trends influenced the trajectory of the fieldthe challenges of anthropomorphism and metaphor in science and the study of animal behaviormeta-primatology and the process of studying those who study primates, especially in Japanmarginalization in science, sometimes caused by language constraints and cultural influences on thoughtthe legend that is Kinji Imanishi, his views on nature, and his influence on Japanese primatology and beyondFor anyone interested in finding out more about her work, you can visit Dr. Pamela Asquith's website, and check out her book A Japanese View of Nature: The World of Living Things on Amazon or wherever else you might get your reading material. And don'The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter Subscribe where you get your podcastsEmail theprimatecast@gmail.com with thoughts and comments Consider sending us an email or reaching out on social media to give us your thoughts on this and any other interview in the series. We're always happy to hear from you and hope to continue improving our podcast format based on your comments and suggestions. A podcast from Kyoto University and CICASP.