Helen Mylne
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helephantmylne.bsky.social
Helen Mylne
@helephantmylne.bsky.social
670 followers 260 following 64 posts
How long do monkeys live? 🐒 Turns out we don't really know! Postdoc in Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour at UoExeter modelling primate lifespans. Also elephant social network analyst 🐘 running entirely on sugar and a love of African wildlife 🌍
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helephantmylne.bsky.social
Helen Mylne @helephantmylne.bsky.social · Nov 26
Resharing for new users to find collaborations or just people posting cool #animal #research! I think I've got a decent mix of taxonomic groups of interest, so hopefully this will be useful 🐟🦍🐠🦎🦗🦈🐧🦂🐬🕷️🐌🐢🐙🦟🐳🦁🦋🐊🐜🦆🐘🦃🦘🐛

DM to be added 😊

go.bsky.app/9CV3PAd

#Behavior
helephantmylne.bsky.social
Happy #FieldworkFriday! Don't even remember taking this photo but it was on my camera so I must have done.....

Enjoy! 😂
A small bird that is not a zebra finch but something similar sitting on a dry branch. Sorry that I can't remember what it actually is....!
November 14, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
williamohearn.bsky.social
New paper out in iScience. We found the pattern of Guinea baboon meat transfers follows the shape of their nested multi-level society. Transfers of meat are more tolerant at the lower levels of the society and are more likely to occur along stronger social relationships. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
Meat transfer patterns reflect the multi-level social system of Guinea baboons
Wildlife behavior; Biological sciences; Zoology; Evolutionary biology
www.cell.com
October 31, 2025 at 1:36 PM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
Interested in a PhD disease ecology? Post advertised at @uni-of-edinburgh.bsky.social with @thedickvet.bsky.social & the @roslininstitute.bsky.social, to work on viral & parasitic disease transmission in grey squirrels for red squirrel conservation 🐿️ details here:

e5-dtp.ed.ac.uk/project?item...
Project | E5 Doctoral Training Partnership | E5 Doctoral Training Partnership
The project advertisement
e5-dtp.ed.ac.uk
October 28, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
ljnbrent.bsky.social
the IUCN have passed the Longevity Conservation motion put forward to them by @kellerfish.bsky.social and @pili-scotland.bsky.social and based on the paper we wrote on the value of older individuals in animal societies.
www.cdu.edu.au/news/global-...
Global body adopts policy to protect Earth’s old, wise and large animals | Charles Darwin University
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recognised Charles Darwin University-led research into the Earth’s oldest animals with the adoption of the ‘Longevity Conservation’ global...
www.cdu.edu.au
October 24, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
sheldonbirds.bsky.social
Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Examples of some recent papers from graduate students in my group - a full list of recent papers and preprints can be found here (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=pTdxVdIAAAAJ) and profile of the group here: https://egioxford.web.ox.ac.uk/members The annual Wytham Field Team Photo! Celebrating a successful field season with great food & good company - May 2025 Front view of the Life & Mind Building, which opened in Oct 2025: The new home of Biology at Oxford
October 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
domcram.bsky.social
🚨Fully-funded PhD opportunity in my group🚨

🧬How does parental ageing shape the next generation?🐾

Find out by studying meerkats!

🧪Epigenetic clocks
✨Bioinformatics
📊Long-term data
🌍Kalahari fieldwork
💡Big evolutionary questions

Get in touch or APPLY NOW
Please share!
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...
A collage featuring some laboratory analyses, a schematic of the structure of DNA, a pocket watch in an elderly person's hand, and a family of wild meerkats.
October 17, 2025 at 9:12 AM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
What are you looking at? 👀🦓

Happy #FieldworkFriday, and today I'm posting zebras for Jo other reason than that zebras are cool 😎

My only question: why isn't everything zebra striped?! It's thermoregulatory, it's camouflage, it's protection from biting flies... Why can't I be stripy?!
A group of zebras in a green landscape of the Makgadikgadi in wet season
October 17, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
delphinedemoor.bsky.social
Social relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*?

In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts.

tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
The Adaptive Relationships Framework illustrating how broad socioecological pressures shape the social solutions animals use to meet these challenges, and how these lead to social strategies and emergent structures that help them gain access to those solutions.
October 16, 2025 at 7:07 AM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
This is a fantastic piece, with some wonderful animations showing the movement patterns of different birds. I had no idea that there are hurricane-chasing birds! 😱🌪️
October 16, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
andyradford.bsky.social
❓ Want to join us?
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork

👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🙏Share widely
Dwarf mongoose Rhesus macaques grooming Meerkat
October 16, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
karlgrieshop.bsky.social
Please RT!

🚨 4-year PhD position in my lab (Oct 2026 start) 🚨

Molecular and genomic insights to sexually antagonistic genes

Application deadline: Dec 2, 2025

biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/mol...
Molecular and genomic insights to sexually antagonistic genes (GRIESHOP_U26DTP) | Doctoral Training Partnership
Why do harmful genes persist in populations instead of being removed by natural selection? One answer lies in sexual antagonism: when a genetic variant benefits males but harms females, or vice versa.
biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk
October 16, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
amcell.bsky.social
2025. How Europe's largest bat [greater noctule (Nyctalus lasiopterus] catches and eats birds mid-air phys.org/news/2025-10...
How Europe's largest bat catches and eats birds mid-air
After nearly 25 years of research, the mystery has finally been solved: Europe's largest bat doesn't just eat small birds—it hunts and captures them more than a kilometer above the ground. And it eats...
phys.org
October 13, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
chibdm.bsky.social
Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop
October 6, 2025 at 8:48 PM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
This week on #PhotographyFriday is a bad photo taken through my friend's binoculars.... But I saw an Osprey at the Otter Estuary! 😁 This handsome juvenile male has come down from the Tweed valley in Scotland, at the start of his migration, and seems very content in Devon 🦅
A young male osprey set in a dead tree, taken through a pair of binoculars. He is visible against a hill in the background, but a long way off so very small!
October 3, 2025 at 11:34 AM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
3yr PDRA at @exeter.ac.uk with @york.ac.uk and Centre for Whale Research, studying how killer whale social relationships change with prey availability, partner loss and social info. A fantastic team & unique longterm dataset. Deadline 19 Oct!
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOT336/postdoctoral-research-associate
Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Exeter
Apply for the Postdoctoral Research Associate role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.
share.google
September 24, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
jengolbeck.bsky.social
I found this birding book along the side of the road on the Tamiami trail in the Everglades on 8/25/25. It is so well loved with sightings going back decades. If you're a birder (I am not) please spread the word and hep me find the owner so they can be reunited
September 20, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
anthropocenebio.bsky.social
A lively and light hearted moth vs butterfly discussion on The Infinite Monkey Cage with @janehillyork.bsky.social, @chrisjiggins.bsky.social, Katy Brand, @profbriancox.bsky.social & Robin Ince.

Are you team butterfly or team moth 🦋💡?

Listen to the episode in full: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
The Infinite Monkey Cage - Series 33 - Moths v Butterflies - Katy Brand, Jane Hill and Chris Jiggins - BBC Sounds
Brian Cox and Robin Ince adjudicate a fluttery face off!
www.bbc.co.uk
September 4, 2025 at 11:07 AM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
It's #FieldworkFriday! One of the things that I don't post much about is the people I've worked with. In the Australian outback, we went more than a little insane while watching the babblers, but the craziness was so much fun that I made friends I will never forget ❤️ @babblingbirds.bsky.social
People sat around a large bonfire
September 5, 2025 at 1:16 PM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
Somehow it's already #PhotographyFriday again... Not quite sure where this week has gone!

This one is from last Sunday, when I finally made it up to #Dartmoor for probably the first time since Covid! Sheep following an old mining cart track in front of Haytor Rocks, amongst the heather and gorse 🐑
4 sheep walking along a granite track in front of Haytor on Dartmoor. There is gorse and heather in flower. The sky is cloudy but with blue showing through. The sheep have black faces and legs, and curling horns.
August 29, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
nadiah.bsky.social
Check out the graphical abstract for a paper recently published in Ecological Modelling.

I have papers published in Ecological Modelling. Never again, I guess.
A diagram titled "Ecological Network Optimisation" with attractive landscapes and networks and very clear AI-generation artifacts.
August 25, 2025 at 11:05 PM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
All of my usual #FieldworkFriday photos come from old trips, but this one is just from my own garden last weekend. I made the mistake of hand-digging a new flowerbed in a heatwave 🥵 and then planting it with plants that all like different soil types... But they have survived 5 days so far! 🏵️🌹🌸🕷️🐌🌿
Flower bed containing a pink rose, 2 heathers, 3 small lavenders and a daphne
August 22, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
inesismartins.bsky.social
3-year #Postdoc opportunity at the University of York!
I am #hiring a Postdoc to join my URF project on exploring how #biodiversity change is unfolding in the #Anthropocene.

Deadline: 10th August 2025.

All details and the link to apply: shorturl.at/qOQst

@anthropocenebio.bsky.social #ecology
Jobs - The University of York
jobs.york.ac.uk
July 4, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Helen Mylne
stephanielking.bsky.social
Excited to share that we have just been awarded a NERC Pushing the Frontiers grant to work on between-group cooperation in the Shark Bay dolphins. We will soon advertise a 3 year post-doc to join the team - drop me an email if you might be interested! Pls share widely 🙏🏻
July 31, 2025 at 6:13 AM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
I'm cheating for #FieldworkFriday because it's not my photo... I'm officially Dr Mylne! 🎓🎉

Thanks again to Dan Franks, @cmbeale.bsky.social, @anthropocenebio.bsky.social, @elephantkate, Julia Ferrari, Jakob Bro-Jorgensen, and Uni of York for all your support and guidance ❤️

#graduation #longboi
Me, on a bridge over the lake at the University of York. I'm wearing the York PhD graduation cap gown, which is grey, with a red hood and a red tassle on the sleeve. I am holding a plushie version of Long Boi, the famous campus duck. There are willow trees in the background
July 25, 2025 at 1:06 PM
helephantmylne.bsky.social
I've learnt a valuable lesson this morning: don't watch Deadpool and Wolverine the night before reading a paper on data pooling....

I'm now curious to know what the Deadpool variant "Datapool" would be like 🤔
deadpool is sitting at a desk reading a magazine with the words back to work written below him
Alt: Gif of Deadpool sitting at a desk reading a magazine with the words back to work written below him. He then turns to a computer and starts typing
media.tenor.com
July 16, 2025 at 9:05 AM