Desert locusts are infamous for their swarming behaviour when they migrate en masse and consume everything in their path, but usually they occur in a form that actively avoids other locusts and live solitary existences. Which one of these lifestyles poses bigger challenges and requires more brain power?

Using field experiments in Africa and a new computer model that gives them a bird’s eye view of the world, Dr Claire Spottiswoode and Dr Martin Stevens have discovered how a bird decides whether or not a cuckoo has laid an egg in its nest.

Bird mothers communicate with their developing chicks before they even hatch by leaving them messages in the egg, new research by a team from the Department has found.

Congratulations to two students from the Department, who have recently received awards from the Zoological Society of London.