Biography
Cat Hobaiter grew up in Lebanon, England, and France. She has worked with primates in Uganda, and across Africa, for 15-years. She earned her PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2011, today her group here concentrates on long-term field studies of communication and cognition in wild African apes. She continues to spend around half the year in the field, and recently established a new field station in Uganda: the Bugoma Primate Conservation Project. She likes good coffee and bad science-fiction.
You can find more about her research here https://wildminds.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ and here: http://greatapedictionary.ac.uk/ and find her on twitter @nakedprimate
Teaching
PS3036 Evolutionary and Comparative Psychology, Junior Honors
PS5010 Origins of Mind, MSc
Research areas
I study the evolution of communication and social behaviour, in particular through long-term field studies of wild chimpanzees. During my PhD I conducted the first systematic study of gestural communication in a wild ape, working in the Budongo Forest Reserve in Uganda with the Sonso chimpanzee community. We have recently extended this research to include multi-modal communication. Like humans, apes do not gesture or vocalize in isolation - their communication combines calls, gestures, facial expressions, and body postures; in order to better understand their communication and cognition we have integrated the study of all of these separate modalities into a single study of communication. Through this work we hope not only to advance our understanding of great ape communication but also by looking at areas of overlap or species specific traits, we hope to gain an understanding of the evolutionary origins of language.
In addition to this work I study the acquisition and flexibility of social behaivour. I have recently set up the habituation of a new neighbouring community at the Budongo Conservation Field Station, the Waibira chimpanzee community, while still in the process of habituation, we are now able to look at the effect of female immigration on their behavioural repertoires and to compare and contrast technology such as leaf-sponging in the two communities.
PhD supervision
- Gal Badihi
- Charlotte Grund
Selected publications
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A review of factors to consider when using camera traps to study animal behavior to inform wildlife ecology and conservation
Caravaggi, A., Burton, A. C., Clark, D. A., Fisher, J. T., Grass, A., Green, S., Hobaiter, C., Hofmeester, T. R., Kalan, A. K., Rabaiotti, D. & Rivet, D., 19 Jun 2020, In : Conservation Science and Practice. Early View, 9 p., e239.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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Chimpanzee lip-smacks confirm primate continuity for speech-rhythm evolution
Pereira, A. S., Kavanagh, E., Hobaiter, C., Slocombe, K. E. & R. Lameira, A., 27 May 2020, In : Biology Letters. 16, 5, 20200232.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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The importance of being in situ
Hobaiter, C., 9 Mar 2020, In : Current Biology. 30, 5, p. R199-R201 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Book/Film/Article review
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Countering infanticide: chimpanzee mothers are sensitive to the relative risks posed by males on differing rank trajectories
Lowe, A. E., Hobaiter, C. & Newton-Fisher, N. E., Jan 2019, In : American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 168, 1, p. 3-9 7 p.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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Gesture use in communication between mothers and offspring in wild orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) from the Sabangau peat-swamp forest, Borneo
Knox, A., Markx, J., How, E., Azis, A., Hobaiter, C., van Veen, F. J. F. & Morrogh-Bernard, H., Jun 2019, In : International Journal of Primatology. 40, p. 393?416 24 p.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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Intra-community infanticide in wild, eastern chimpanzees: a 24 year review
Lowe, A. E., Hobaiter, C., Asiimwe, C., Zuberbuhler, K. & Newton-Fisher, N. E., 27 May 2019, In : Primates. First Online, 14 p.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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Linguistic laws in chimpanzee gestural communication
Heesen, R., Hobaiter, C., Ferrer-i-Cancho, R. & Semple, S., 13 Feb 2019, In : Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 286, 1896Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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Maternal cannibalism in two populations of wild chimpanzees
Fedurek, P., Tkaczynski, P., Asiimwe, C., Hobaiter, C., Samuni, L., Lowe, A. E., Dijrian, A. G., Zuberbühler, K., Wittig, R. M. & Crockford, C., 5 Oct 2019, In : Primates. First Online, 7 p.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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Possible mineral contributions to the diet and health of wild chimpanzees in three East African forests
Reynolds, V., Pascual-Garrido, A., Lloyd, A. W., Lyons, P. & Hobaiter, C., 14 May 2019, In : American Journal of Primatology. Early View, e978.Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article
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Scleral pigmentation leads to conspicuous, not cryptic, eye morphology in chimpanzees
Perea-García, J. O., Kret, M. E., Monteiro, A. & Hobaiter, C., 3 Sep 2019, In : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Latest Articles, 3 p., 201911410 .Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article