Thomas MacGillavry
@thomasmacgillavry
Postdoc with Tecumseh Fitch, UniWien The biology and evolution of dance 💃🏻🕺🏼 🦚 Love music, nature, bouldering, and exploring wild places 🌴 he/him University of Vienna
Book Nr. 10 is Steve Mithen’s 1996 “The Prehistory of the Mind”. Perhaps the first comprehensive attempt to blend evolutionary psychology and archaeology.
Ever wondered what the bizarre dances of male birds of paradise look like to females? Check out our new preprint! @izziehb.bsky.social @fusanilab.bsky.social “The geometry of visual signaling in a bird-of-paradise” ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
Book Nr. 9: Ritual by Dimitris Xygalatas @xygalatas.bsky.social. I’ve been reading more evolutionary anthropology literature lately and this was definitely a highlight!
Book Nr. 7 of the year: The Future of Life by Ed Wilson.
Thought Id check out who cited one of my papers on riflebird courtship; turned out one citation is pure AI slop! The book chapter invented a nonsensical title and author list. Another ref about jellyfish had a DOI linked to a paper about long term memory in Caracaras. Total shite!
Doing more writing/coding than reading these days but book nr. 6 of the year is Sleeping Beauties by Andreas Wagner. Nice perspective on the tendency for biological and cultural systems to produce important innovations long before their potential is realized.
If you look closely you can see him blush #ASABSpring2026
Now that I’m beginning a postdoc about the biology of dance (in birds but also humans), I’ve been learning more about evolutionary anthropology. Book nr. 5 is Shamanism: the timeless religion by Manvir Singh. Very exiting read!
Been a bit slow with reading this year finishing up my PhD, but book nr. 4 this year is Rick Shine’s classic “Australian Snakes: A Natural History”. A real joy to read; highly recommended!
Check out the new bowerbird special issue in Emu - Austral Ornithology! Lots of interesting new #bowerbird research, featuring a fancy flame bowerbird on the cover! Check out our review on the origins and functions of bower construction behaviour here: doi.org/10.1080/0158...
Book nr. 3 this year is Sensory Ecology, Behaviour, & Evolution by Martin Stevens. Very useful introduction to sensory ecology and signal evolution!
For much of my PhD, I took a fast-paced approach to work, trying to cram as much “stuff” as possible in my waking hours. Much of the time, I’ve been teetering on burning out, but I’ve learnt my lesson and am taking the “slow productivity” way. Book nr. 2 of the 2026 list, highly recommended!
Formatted version of our new #allometry paper is out! doi.org/10.1093/evol...
Thought I’d post regular book updates; here’s read #1 of 2026. An excellent and exhaustive account of sensory ecology
Thought it would be fun to post some books; just finished the Great Animal Orchestra by Bernie Krause and started the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.
Another quick spotlight of my new paper with @kenstoyama.bsky.social ; within the ~40 bird of paradise species, the ribbon-tailed astrapia has the longest tail of any passeriform at up to ~1.2m, while the short-tailed paradigalla has just a 5cm tail at a similar body size! doi.org/10.1093/evol...
Was it a coincidence that the species of choice was Victoria’s riflebird? 😜
Found Australia’s heaviest stick insect with my friends Angus Emmott and Alan Gillanders last night. Angus described it just earlier this year! mapress.com/zt/article/v...
Just leaving Melbourne after visiting good friends and seeing the amazing forests in the Dandenong range (feat. Koalas and wombats)
Still scratching my head about whether female #magnificentriflebirds display back at males or if all those copulations I’ve filmed actually involve immature males
Just realized its the 10th anniversary of this banger of an album. Nightwish’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Don’t know many other bands that infuse so much naturalism and natural history into their music 🌱
Super exciting camera trap haul here! Installed a camera on a suspicious fallen tree and got several new displays for a male that’s been eluding me so far! Just look at this dancing black hole!
#bowerbirds are the only birds that build structures used specifically for courtship. But why and how did this remarkable ability evolve? We discuss some possibilities in our new review in Emu - Austral Ornithology! @fusanilab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/0158...
Victoria’s riflebirds are masters of time, accelerating their dance tempo by reducing the durations between movements by just 50 milliseconds, before leveling off at 3 alternations per second and flashing their yellow mouth. Read more about this spectacular dance here: www.cell.com/current-biol...
Very proud to present our paper on the spectacular “dances” of Victoria’s riflebirds! Out now in Current Biology. www.cell.com/current-biol...