Happening in 1 week: October 23rd, from 4 to 5.30pm Hong Kong time (UTC+8) or 10 to 11.30 Central European time (UTC+2)! Still time to register using the QR code on the poster below 😄
Looking forward to sharing the outcome of my four years of PhD research on the Hong Kong feral cattle 🐂

@ghodgson.bsky.social and I will present our PhD research on October 23rd, 4 to 5.30pm HK time
Zoom is open for all and in-person attendance is available for staff and students of City University of Hong Kong. Scan the QR code or use the following link to register docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We present the first evidence of seasonal coat colour changes in cattle, with paler individuals in the wet season and darker ones in the dry season, suggesting plastic phenotypes. The main driver of seasonal coat colour appears to be thermoregulation, supporting the thermal melanism hypothesis.

Despite the abundance of cattle globally, and the important variations of heat stress risk across phenotypes in livestock, evidence in feral populations is lacking. Hong Kong cattle present an opportunity to study phenotypic adaptations in one of the few cattle populations not controlled by humans.

Our latest feral cattle paper “Seasonal changes in coat colour and sexual size dimorphism in a subtropical ungulate” is out today in open access
@royalsociety.org Royal Society Open Science royalsocietypublishing-org/doi/10.1098/... by myself, Kate Flay, @ghodgson.bsky.social & @amcell.bsky.social