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 黑料吃瓜网 in 2011, today her group here (the Wild Minds Lab) 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 new field sites in Uganda: the Bugoma Primate Conservation Project and in Guinea: the Moyen Bafing Chimpanzee Project. She likes good coffee and bad science-fiction.
You can find more about her research here and here: and find her on twitter
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 and other apes. 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 now extended this research across sites and ape species, and now even to other species such as elephants. 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 our 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.
PhD supervision
- Harmonie Klein
Selected publications
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Open access
Badihi, G., Taylor-O鈥機onnor, J., Bezerra de Melo Daly, G., Komeda, V., Daoudi-Simison, S., Rodrigues, E. D., Webster, M. M., Altschul, D. M., Hobaiter, C., Wiltshire, C., Klein, H., Freymann, E., Grund, C., Soldati, A., Henderson, M., Leroux, M. M. & Slania, N. E., 1 Jan 2026, In: Animal Behaviour. 231, p. 1-10 10 p., 123428.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Wessling, E. G., Samuni, L., Koops, K., Humle, T., Hockings, K. J., Soiret, S. K., Scholfield, K., Pintea, L., Luncz, L. V., Lanjouw, A., Kamgang, S. A., Kalan, A. K., Ikemeh, R. A., Hobaiter, C., Fourrier, M., Freymann, E., Arandjelovic, M., Almeida-Warren, K., Abwe, E. & Sanz, C., 30 Mar 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Biological Reviews. Early View, p. 1-20
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
P茅ter, H., Akankwasa, J. W., Kizza, V., Zuberb眉hler, K. & Hobaiter, C., 14 Apr 2026, In: American Journal of Primatology. 88, 4, e70152.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
Rodrigues, E. D., Hobaiter, C., Henderson, M., Grund, C. & Santos, A. J., 16 Feb 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Developmental Psychology. Online First
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
Graham, K., Sadiakhou, M., Ndiaye, P., Badji, L., Hobaiter, C. & Pruetz, J., 8 Apr 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Behaviour. Advance Articles, p. 1-13
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
Eleuteri, V., van der Werff, J., Wilhelm, W., Soldati, A., Crockford, C., Desai, N., Fedurek, P., Fitzgerald, M., Graham, K. E., Koops, K., Pruetz, J., Samuni, L., Slocombe, K., Stoeger, A., Wilson, M. L., Wittig, R. M., Zuberb眉hler, K., Camara, H. D., Mamy, G. & Ravignani, A. & 1 others, , 19 May 2025, In: Current Biology. 35, 10, p. 2448-2456.e4 14 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
Wessling, E. G., Whiten, A., Soiret, S., Schofield, K., Samuni, L., Rutz, C., Redmond, I., Pintea, L., Lanjouw, A., Koops, K., Kamgang, S., Kalan, A., Ikemeh, R., Humle, T., Hobaiter, C., Frisch-Nwakanma, H., Freymann, E., Doumbe, O., Brakes, P. & Abwe, E. & 1 others, , 1 May 2025, In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 380, 1925, 20240143.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
Villioth, J., Lim, J., Hobaiter, C., Zuberb眉hler, K. & Newton鈥怓isher, N. E., 13 Dec 2025, In: American Journal of Primatology. 87, 12, e70104.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
Dominy, N. J., Fannin, L. D., Vogel, E. R., Robbins, M. M. & Hobaiter, C., Sept 2025, In: Bioscience. 75, 9, p. 774鈥�778 biaf102.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Review article 鈥� peer-review
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Open access
Eleuteri, V., Bates, L., Nyaradzo Masarira, Y., Plotnik, J. M., Hobaiter, C. & Stoeger, A. S., Jul 2025, In: Royal Society Open Science. 12, 7, p. 1-18 18 p., 242203.
Research output: Contribution to journal 鈥� Article 鈥� peer-review