Edward McLester
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edwardmclester.com
Edward McLester
@edwardmclester.com
Conservation biology lecturer at Marwell Wildlife & Uni. Southampton | UK landscapes and African primate behavioural ecology, especially cercopithecine monkeys | edwardmclester.com
Reposted by Edward McLester
New - my first piece for @science.org !

Absolutely crazy footage of rat behaviour in Germany.

Rats filmed snatching bats from air for first time | Science | AAAS share.google/WAsAIQ8j0MKp...
Rats filmed snatching bats from air for first time
Stunning hunting behaviour captured in German cave
share.google
October 24, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Edward McLester
Researchers have known for decades that chimpanzees drum, but two new studies show that the animals drum to a distinct beat—which varies across their societies.

Learn more: scim.ag/3YJ7R9r
May 14, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Edward McLester
Macaques on Japan's Shodoshima Island enjoy leaving chalk marks on stones.

They have no symbolic purpose, but recognisable geometric features (parallelism, intersections, repetitions).

(paper) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-024-01176-y
January 18, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by Edward McLester
Reposted by Edward McLester
Discovery of cumulative culture in chimps
m.youtube.com/watch?v=M2YA...
Why chimps are still in the Stone Age and humans are in the Space Age | New Scientist Weekly 277
YouTube video by New Scientist
m.youtube.com
November 22, 2024 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Edward McLester
Hi Science Community!

We made a starter pack of research software (& research software developers). Please make suggestions & re-post.

If you are a developer & want to be added,
please reply, link to your software,
& mention the discipline(s) it caters to.

🧪 📊 #PsychSciSky

go.bsky.app/3brP43N
November 17, 2024 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Edward McLester
Surfing when #sharks patrol these waters?

A new counter illumination set-up protects form shark bites. Cool new field study by Laura Ryan and team in CB! 🧪
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Counterillumination reduces bites by Great White sharks
Ryan et al. discover that counterillumination prevents Great White sharks from attacking artificial seal decoys that they perceive to be prey. Altering the silhouette of an object with uniform bright ...
www.cell.com
November 11, 2024 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Edward McLester
If you need a break from US election coverage, you can read my piece on a dispute between scientists over Maasai cattle herding in Kenya’s Mara reserve news.mongabay.com/2024/11/can-...
Can cattle and wildlife co-exist in the Maasai Mara? A controversial study says yes
Cattle and conservation don’t typically mix. For centuries, East African pastoralists like the Maasai trudged across the region’s savannas with their herds, passing by elephants and lions in their sea...
news.mongabay.com
November 5, 2024 at 12:43 PM
Reposted by Edward McLester
If you're teaching R, or statistics, and you want your students to get more practice of data wrangling with "messy" data, you can use the {messy} package to turn the clean data you currently use for examples into more realistic looking data!

#RStats #StatsEd
Came across this fun #rstats package from @nrennie.bsky.social that turns clean datasets into messy ones. github.com/nrennie/messy
November 5, 2024 at 3:34 PM