Why do some birds fear new things while others seem endlessly curious? An international collaboration — the ManyBirds Project — brought together researchers from 77 institutions across 24 countries to explore this question. Among them were from Biopsychology Mina Khodadadi and Neslihan Wittek, our previous PhD-student. Testing more than 1,400 individual birds from 136 species, the team presented familiar food alongside strange, colorful objects — like the one shown above — and measured how long each bird hesitated before approaching. The findings reveal that neophobia, the fear of novelty, is deeply shaped by a bird’s lifestyle: species that migrate or have specialized diets tend to be more cautious, while generalists and domesticated birds are brave explorers. See https://youtu.be/xGPQ6lcRGpE. Beyond that, the study is a nice example of the power of big team science — showing how collaboration and shared curiosity can unite scientists around the world to better understand how animals think, learn, and adapt.

ManyBirds Project et al. (2025). A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia. PLOS Biology, 23(10), e3003394. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003394