animal behavior and cognition papers

Animal behavior and cognition explores the fascinating inner lives of creatures big and small, from how a crow solves a puzzle to why dogs seem to understand human emotions. This field investigates the mental processes and social interactions that drive the natural world, revealing that intelligence and awareness take many forms across species.

At Gist.Science, we bring these discoveries directly from bioRxiv to your screen. Our team processes every new preprint in this category from bioRxiv, ensuring you have access to the latest research through both detailed technical summaries and easy-to-understand plain-language explanations. Whether you are a researcher or a curious reader, you can dive deep into the data or grasp the core concepts without the barrier of dense academic jargon.

Below are the most recent papers exploring the minds and behaviors of animals, freshly processed and ready for you to explore.

📄 animal behavior and cognition

From lab to ocean: bridging swimming energetics and wild movements to understand red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) behavior in a tidal estuary

By integrating laboratory flow-respirometry, mesocosm accelerometer data, and multi-year field telemetry, this study reveals that while red drum can exploit turbulent wakes to reduce swimming costs in controlled settings, their wild habitat selection is primarily driven by ecological factors like foraging and predation refuge rather than hydrodynamic efficiency alone.

Gibbs, B., Strother, J., Morgan, C., Pinton, D., Canestrelli, A., Liao, J. C.2026-04-07

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Vocal Signatures of Stress Relief: Effects of Appeasing Harness and Synthetic Pheromone on Puppy Whine Acoustics in Separation Context (Canis familiaris)

This study demonstrates that while calming interventions like synthetic pheromones and pressure harnesses do not reduce the frequency or intensity of puppy whining during separation, they effectively lower fundamental frequency, variability, and acoustic roughness, thereby revealing subtle reductions in emotional arousal through bioacoustic analysis.

Philippe, R., Le-Bourdiec-Shaffi, A., Kaltsatos, V., Reby, D., Massenet, M.2026-04-06

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Persistent male survival advantage in a protogynous hermaphrodite fish

Contrary to the typical expectation of higher male mortality in polygynous species, a study on the protogynous cleaner wrasse *Labroides dimidiatus* during the 2024 El Niño event revealed that terminal-phase males exhibited greater survival than initial-phase females, whose mortality more than doubled due to physiological vulnerabilities linked to faster growth rates.

Pessina, L., Bshary, R.2026-04-06

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Context-dependent mechanical reconfiguration is necessary for multifunctional behavior in a constrained hydrostat

This paper demonstrates that the sea hare's buccal mass achieves large odontophore protractions during distinct feeding behaviors through context-dependent mechanical reconfigurations, revealing a fundamental distinction between "constrained" and "unconstrained" muscular hydrostats that rely on different control strategies based on the presence of mechanical constraints.

Bennington, M. J., Rogers, S. M., Neustadter, D. M., Quinn, R. D., Sutton, G. P., Chiel, H. J., Webster-Wood, V. A.2026-04-05

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Free-flight kinematics of soldier flies during headwind gust perturbations

This study investigates the flight kinematics of black soldier flies subjected to discrete headwind gusts, revealing rapid, asymmetric wing and body responses that combine passive and active control mechanisms to maintain stability, thereby offering critical insights for designing robust micro aerial vehicles.

Gupta, D., Sane, S. P., Arakeri, J. H.2026-04-03

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Low-dimensional latent spaces identify the functional structure of individual behavioral phenotypes

This paper introduces a multi-domain framework that extracts stable, low-dimensional latent representations from professional Counter-Strike 2 telemetry to identify interpretable behavioral phenotypes and predict individual performance transfer across diverse contexts.

Higashi, H.2026-04-01

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Ruffled minds? First insights into restlessness as a potential novel indicator of impaired welfare in bulls fattened for meat production

This study provides the first insights into restlessness as a potential welfare indicator in fattening bulls, revealing that animals in fully-slatted and straw-based systems exhibit significantly higher behavioral transitions than those on organic pasture, likely due to environmental monotony or feeding-related discomfort.

Hintze, S., Wildemann, T., Krottenthaler, F., Winckler, C.2026-03-31

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Contrasting Probabilistic and Intentional Accounts of Confidence in Perceptual Decisions

This paper demonstrates that confidence in perceptual decisions does not rely on a single computational mechanism, but rather adapts to task demands, with an intentional architecture better explaining incentivized motion discrimination and a hierarchical probabilistic model better capturing un-incentivized luminance discrimination.

Zylberberg, A.2026-03-30

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Spontaneous drumming behaviour in a Galah

This paper reports the first documented instance of spontaneous, tool-assisted drumming in a captive Galah, which produced rhythmically organized tapping with a hierarchical structure without training, thereby expanding the known scope of rhythmic and tool-using abilities in parrots.

Bamford, J. S., Bamford, A. R.2026-03-27

📄 animal behavior and cognition

Physiological and behavioural characterisation of a novel steroid sulfatase-deficient mouse

This study characterizes a novel *Sts*-deficient mouse model that lacks steroid sulfatase activity and exhibits increased activity, higher normalized heart weights, and sex-specific behavioral differences, providing a valuable tool for investigating the physiological and behavioral consequences of STS deficiency.

Humby, T., Shepherd, F. R., Elgie, T., Anderson-Watkins, L., Beevors, L. I., Taylor, A. E., Foster, P. A., Davies, W.2026-03-26

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