Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
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sandrateles-esmag.bsky.social
Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
@sandrateles-esmag.bsky.social
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
#Wisdom is back!
The world’s oldest known living banded bird, Mōlī (Laysan albatross) queen, has returned to Kuailhelani (Midway Atoll). #Birds
November 20, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
𝗗𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝘁𝘀 & 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗮𝘁𝘇 will give their first-ever 𝗷𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 at NetSci 2026! Their groundbreaking work has shaped how we understand networks, & this session will be a highlight of NetSci’s 20th anniversary.
Call for abstracts: tinyurl.com/3tbj2v83
Call for satellites: tinyurl.com/42sru6kz
November 20, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
In an increasingly divided world, how do strangers become friends? Parakeets might have something to teach us! New paper on formation of affiliative relationships, led by Dr. Claire O’Connell doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
November 12, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
Behavioral data can be very detailed but are usually aggregated and normalized in ways that smother the dynamics. Ben wrote a continuous-time Markov model to improve on this, and also wrote simulations for exploring and validating pipelines. All the code is here: github.com/BenKawam/ASN...
New paper!

We propose a framework to empirically study animal social relationships by modelling social network (SN) data as time-series—that is, without the need to aggregate them over time.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 12, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
New episode!! 🎙️📣

A conversation with @manvir.bsky.social about the many faces of shamanism.

Shamanism is not a relic of the past or a curio from far-off lands—it's alive and well, all around the world. The roots of shamanism, after all, lie within us.

Listen: disi.org/the-shaman-w...
August 1, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
Reasonable, minimal collective action for a better scholarly publishing ecosystem
June 10, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
New paper in @behavecol.bsky.social (link: academic.oup.com/beheco/advan...)
led by PhD student @marcofele.bsky.social using hard-won data from our amazing baboon team. Our @swanseauni.bsky.social press release:
www.swansea.ac.uk/press-office...
We introduce the idea of a "social spandrel".....
Baboons walk in line for friendship, not survival, new study finds
Researchers at Swansea University have discovered that baboons walk in lines, not for safety or strategy, but simply to stay close to their friends.
www.swansea.ac.uk
June 3, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
🧪New preprint: “Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks” in collaboration with Ross Walker, @mattjsilk.bsky.social, Denis Boyer and @sandrateles-esmag.bsky.social
arxiv.org/abs/2505.01167
🧵 1/5
Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks
Collectives are often able to process information in a distributed fashion, surpassing each individual member's processing capacity. In fission-fusion dynamics, where group members come together and s...
arxiv.org
May 5, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
Great talk by Hal Whitehead about sperm whale clans yesterday. If you missed it, then watch it here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQbA...
25 February 2025 Hal Whitehead
YouTube video by Seminar on Frontiers in Social Evolution
www.youtube.com
February 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Reposted by Sandra E. Smith Aguilar
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge. Rumi, Sufi scholar and poet (1207–1273)
September 8, 2024 at 7:06 AM