Ammon Perkes
@alltheperkes.bsky.social
Computational ethologist (I like animals and coding). Ask me about vision based animal tracking.
Other topics may include rock climbing, DnD, and parenting.
PhD in cowbird courtship. Currently tracking clonal guppies in the Laskowski Lab at UC Davis.
Other topics may include rock climbing, DnD, and parenting.
PhD in cowbird courtship. Currently tracking clonal guppies in the Laskowski Lab at UC Davis.
I mean in some ways making tacky AI images is just the "using Comic Sans for your Plenary talk" of our age, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.
November 18, 2025 at 5:05 PM
I mean in some ways making tacky AI images is just the "using Comic Sans for your Plenary talk" of our age, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.
Uh oh, I looked at previous covers:
November 18, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Uh oh, I looked at previous covers:
For a long time my 2yo called every single hole he saw a rat hole. It was one of his first words.
October 16, 2025 at 4:28 PM
For a long time my 2yo called every single hole he saw a rat hole. It was one of his first words.
It’s the same story every year: fall arrives and campus is crowded with a bunch of turkeys that don’t seem to know how to navigate a roundabout
September 22, 2025 at 4:54 PM
It’s the same story every year: fall arrives and campus is crowded with a bunch of turkeys that don’t seem to know how to navigate a roundabout
This holiday season, get your kids the meme toy that they probably want? I don’t know.
September 13, 2025 at 10:28 PM
This holiday season, get your kids the meme toy that they probably want? I don’t know.
This post goes out to all my math teachers out there.
July 21, 2025 at 11:02 PM
This post goes out to all my math teachers out there.
Amazon Warrior, Sanaa @sanaaqahera.bsky.social reminding us that finding a mate can be hard, and expensive, so it should pay to choose wisely. Weirdly, her Atlantic molly males prefer (sperm parasitic) Amazon females, but less so when they’re low on sperm.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
July 12, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Amazon Warrior, Sanaa @sanaaqahera.bsky.social reminding us that finding a mate can be hard, and expensive, so it should pay to choose wisely. Weirdly, her Atlantic molly males prefer (sperm parasitic) Amazon females, but less so when they’re low on sperm.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
My phone died, so I have a post-hoc post on post-doc Jon’s past talk. @jon-aguinaga.bsky.social gave a wonderful talk on mixed species groups. Amazon and Atlantic Molly groups behave differently when separate, and their mixed shoals seem to forage better together. Behavior is information! #ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 11:45 PM
My phone died, so I have a post-hoc post on post-doc Jon’s past talk. @jon-aguinaga.bsky.social gave a wonderful talk on mixed species groups. Amazon and Atlantic Molly groups behave differently when separate, and their mixed shoals seem to forage better together. Behavior is information! #ABS2025
Alex Muth is looking at the extent to which sympatric chickadee species have divergent vocalizations. Lots of amazing data, there are definite differences in the sympatric and allopatric populations, although the specific difference vary by note.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Alex Muth is looking at the extent to which sympatric chickadee species have divergent vocalizations. Lots of amazing data, there are definite differences in the sympatric and allopatric populations, although the specific difference vary by note.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
Janice Yan is breaking down the various pros and cons of polyandry for females. It’s depends on the species: polyandry is costly in bedbugs but beneficial in fruitflies, but overall there seems to be an intermediate, optimal amount. Good to know, in case you’ve run out of superglue #ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Janice Yan is breaking down the various pros and cons of polyandry for females. It’s depends on the species: polyandry is costly in bedbugs but beneficial in fruitflies, but overall there seems to be an intermediate, optimal amount. Good to know, in case you’ve run out of superglue #ABS2025
Maria Albo collaborates across 9 countries for her work in nuptial gifts in spiders. Males wrap gifts in beautiful silk packages, but sometimes gifts are worthless. Worthless gifts are more common when the environment is more variable, when females are less choosy. Share your work locally! #ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Maria Albo collaborates across 9 countries for her work in nuptial gifts in spiders. Males wrap gifts in beautiful silk packages, but sometimes gifts are worthless. Worthless gifts are more common when the environment is more variable, when females are less choosy. Share your work locally! #ABS2025
I don’t *only* go to bird talks, and Marília Freire is exploring the mechanism of mixed species groups in Opiliones (Daddy-Long-Legs). Opiliones may use commonly understood chemical signals. Opiliones have some shared chemical cues, but it’s unclear exactly how this works.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 3:19 PM
I don’t *only* go to bird talks, and Marília Freire is exploring the mechanism of mixed species groups in Opiliones (Daddy-Long-Legs). Opiliones may use commonly understood chemical signals. Opiliones have some shared chemical cues, but it’s unclear exactly how this works.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
Olivia Pletcher has done some herculean data gathering to test for fluctuating selection, sampling nearly 20k nests to show that different group sizes are favored at different times, with the direction of selection flipping not just over years but even over months!
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Olivia Pletcher has done some herculean data gathering to test for fluctuating selection, sampling nearly 20k nests to show that different group sizes are favored at different times, with the direction of selection flipping not just over years but even over months!
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
Hopping next door for another bird talk, Tim Wright covers 30 years of increasingly integrated international collaboration on Costa Rican parrots. Over the three “oncedecadal” surveys, parrot dialects are converging over time, along with a devastating decline in bird populations.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Hopping next door for another bird talk, Tim Wright covers 30 years of increasingly integrated international collaboration on Costa Rican parrots. Over the three “oncedecadal” surveys, parrot dialects are converging over time, along with a devastating decline in bird populations.
#ABS2025
#ABS2025
Day 3, Rebecca Glisson is pulling out all the stops for the Allee symposium, with some adorable nephew vocal learning to go with the songbirds. Testosterone crystallizes song early in Grasshopper Sparrows, perhaps at different times, per song type, depending on your quantification metric #ABS2025
July 11, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Day 3, Rebecca Glisson is pulling out all the stops for the Allee symposium, with some adorable nephew vocal learning to go with the songbirds. Testosterone crystallizes song early in Grasshopper Sparrows, perhaps at different times, per song type, depending on your quantification metric #ABS2025
Michael Ocasio kicking things off with an even more somber topic than grieving dogs: extinction due to invasive species and habitat loss. The Puerto Rican oriole is now dealing with shiny cowbirds, possibly by shifting their breeding season. #ABS2025
July 10, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Michael Ocasio kicking things off with an even more somber topic than grieving dogs: extinction due to invasive species and habitat loss. The Puerto Rican oriole is now dealing with shiny cowbirds, possibly by shifting their breeding season. #ABS2025
Do dogs grieve when we go away? Courtney Sexton has a slightly somber quantification of canine mourning, with surveys of dog owners leading to future experiments. #ABS2025
July 10, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Do dogs grieve when we go away? Courtney Sexton has a slightly somber quantification of canine mourning, with surveys of dog owners leading to future experiments. #ABS2025
Amazon warrior, @kirsten-sheehy.bsky.social has some of the coolest experiments around, testing sociality under controlled conditions. You expect background and treatments to impact things, but life, uh, finds a way to mess up your experiments. Fingers crossed for future blocks! #ABS2025
July 10, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Amazon warrior, @kirsten-sheehy.bsky.social has some of the coolest experiments around, testing sociality under controlled conditions. You expect background and treatments to impact things, but life, uh, finds a way to mess up your experiments. Fingers crossed for future blocks! #ABS2025
I took a break from the skeets, but we’re back, with a super cool zebra talk by @dr-severinehex.bsky.social . Juvenile Zebras develop communication overtime, with their repertoires of behaviors growing and changing as they get older. #ABS2025
July 10, 2025 at 8:17 PM
I took a break from the skeets, but we’re back, with a super cool zebra talk by @dr-severinehex.bsky.social . Juvenile Zebras develop communication overtime, with their repertoires of behaviors growing and changing as they get older. #ABS2025
Life is stressful, but having friends help Elizabeth George is exploring the evidence for transgenerational effects of social buffering during predator stress. Hopefully your mom was with friends when harassed by a giant clay trout #ABs2025 @eliz-m-george.bsky.social
July 10, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Life is stressful, but having friends help Elizabeth George is exploring the evidence for transgenerational effects of social buffering during predator stress. Hopefully your mom was with friends when harassed by a giant clay trout #ABs2025 @eliz-m-george.bsky.social
You know those tame foxes in Russia? They’re still going! Samantha Beckfield shows that tame foxes leave nest box early and often compared to aggressive foxes. Also, there are foxes that have been bred for 50 years to be more aggressive. Luckily, they’re still cute. #ABS2025
July 10, 2025 at 3:14 PM
You know those tame foxes in Russia? They’re still going! Samantha Beckfield shows that tame foxes leave nest box early and often compared to aggressive foxes. Also, there are foxes that have been bred for 50 years to be more aggressive. Luckily, they’re still cute. #ABS2025
Populations can vary locally in sociability. @elizabethhobson.bsky.social checked different parakeet populations and found (subtle) differences in dominance networks in different populations, but these small differences might have big impacts on establishing rank.
July 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Populations can vary locally in sociability. @elizabethhobson.bsky.social checked different parakeet populations and found (subtle) differences in dominance networks in different populations, but these small differences might have big impacts on establishing rank.
Being high status can go to your head, and your liver. Matt Zipple brightens the room with his very cool work on how dominance impacts physiological status. Lots of impacts of dominance status. #ABS2025
July 10, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Being high status can go to your head, and your liver. Matt Zipple brightens the room with his very cool work on how dominance impacts physiological status. Lots of impacts of dominance status. #ABS2025
Reuven Dukas is on the hunt for the genetic basis of sociability in fruit flies (with orthologs in mice and humans). Knockdown of candidate genes impacts sociability. #ABS2025
July 10, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reuven Dukas is on the hunt for the genetic basis of sociability in fruit flies (with orthologs in mice and humans). Knockdown of candidate genes impacts sociability. #ABS2025