In summer, when insects are most abundant, they are a dominant part of the diet of G. moholi.

Understanding the kinds of insects eaten by bushbabies and how they find them is key for their #conservation, and for unpicking their functional role in tropical/sub-tropical forest food-webs.

🧵 8/8

Sound may act as an important proxy for prey size in nocturnal feeding behaviour.

Bushbaby vocalisations are usually confined to social contexts, but I also made novel observations of vocalisations associated with solo foraging 🗣️👇

🧵 7/8

Furthermore, manipulative experiments using Male Driver Ants 🐜 -- a popular prey item -- suggested that while visual movement was a key driver of prey-finding behaviour in G. moholi, sound made prey items particularly attractive and increased the incidence of targeting for feeding.

🧵 6/8

Previous evidence is mixed, with some reports emphasising a primary role for Lepidoptera in the diet, others suggesting Coleoptera and Orthoptera are most important (e.g. Harcourt, 1986).

I observed G. moholi easily catch Lepidoptera mid-flight, including strong fliers such as hawk-moths.

🧵 5/8

Observing/testing predation of different prey items, I found that:

• Moths were always consumed
• Insects with distasteful or noxious secretions (Shield/Stink Bugs) were avoided
• Beetles were closely examined before consumption, and only some eaten

--> clear, species-level prey choice 🐒🐞🦋

🧵 4/8

While recording moths at a UV light trap in South Africa during Oct/Nov 2024, I was able to closely observe the Southern Lesser Bushbaby (G. moholi) foraging and predating insects drawn to the light.

The fieldwork was generously supported by @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social Davis Expedition Fund.

🧵 3/8

Much remains unknown about our #primate relatives.

E.g./ Though #insects are a key dietary component for many #nocturnal species, we still have little idea of:

• which taxa are eaten, and why
• individual/population/seasonal variation in preferences
• the #sensory stimuli used to find them

🧵 2/8

Excellent! When are we bringing pith helmets back to fieldwork? ⛏️

Read more about my work in @uk.theconversation.com: theconversation.com/will-food-ch...

Or, have a look at our recent perspective piece in @globalchangebio.bsky.social: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

2/2 🧵

3. Hear the fantastic talk from this year's John C. Marsden Medal Winner, @jamiecweir.bsky.social gave us on timing and spring-feeding caterpillars. #insectweek www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7mh...

You can find many of the key ideas discussed in my recent @globalchangebio.bsky.social paper:

'Buffering and phenological mismatch: a change of perspective'

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

If ephemeral consumer-resource interactions are more buffered than we may have feared, are we overestimating climate-driven mismatch risks? Or, worse, could we be worried about the wrong species?

Follow the link 👇 and read our paper for more!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🧵6/6

We call for a shift in focus: not just measuring mismatches, but understanding when, how, and why these mismatches actually matter for population persistence.

Resilience is an underappreciated part of this story, but vital for evaluating responses to climate change 🌍🌡️

🧵5/6

From caterpillar dispersal via 'ballooning', to bet-hedging through considerable variation in egg hatch times, and a broad diet and host-plant switching — this species has a range of insurance policies against bad timing 🐛

And analogous buffering mechanisms can be found in many other species.

🧵4/6

However, in this perspective piece we argue that winter moths — poster species in the world of phenology, forest entomology, and pop. ecology — possess a suite of mechanisms that #buffer the effects of mismatch, from egg-laying bet-hedging to caterpillar dispersal.

🧵3/6

Phenological #mismatch arises when distinct phenological responses to climate change drive a #consumer species and its #resource species out of temporal synchrony...

🌳>🐛>🐦 🕜

It's generally considered a widespread phenomenon contributing to #ecosystem fragility.

🧵2/6