Cat Hobaiter

Catherine (Cat) Hobaiter is a British primatologist focusing on social behaviour in wild chimpanzees and involved in long-term studies of chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest Reserve in Uganda. She is particularly interested in the role gestures play in communication. She is a lecturer at the University of St Andrews.

Catherine (Cat) Hobaiter
Alma materUniversity of St Andrews, UK
Known forgestural communication
Scientific career
FieldsPrimatology
InstitutionsUniversity of St Andrews, UK
Budongo Forest Reserve
ThesisGestural communication in wild chimpanzees (2011)
Doctoral advisorRichard Byrne

Career

Hobaiter is based at the University of St Andrews but spends considerable amounts of time on field research in Uganda. She gained tenure in 2013.[1]

Her undergraduate degree started her interest in comparative behaviour and contact with Richard Byrne from St Andrews University led to her first four months fieldwork looking for baboons in Budongo Forest Reserve, working from the Budongo Conservation Field Station.[2] She soon changed to studying wild gorillas and chimpanzees, and especially the Sonso chimpanzee group at the reserve that has been accustomed to humans since the 1990s.[3]

Her work has studied the use of gestures in communication by great apes, especially chimpanzees, in the wild. This requires filming gestures for detailed analysis and, prior to her work, this had been undertaken primarily in zoos or wildlife parks.[3] Her studies have gradually developed a catalogue of around 80 gestures that form a language common to several groups of wild apes, measured in terms of 'apparently satisfactory outcomes' (ASO) after assessing many records.[3] A citizen science project showed that some of the gestures are also understood by humans.[4][5] Hobaiter is also involved in habituating a second group of chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, the Waibira group, which will allow wider comparisons of the use of gestures for communication in the wild.[3]

The film recordings also revealed other aspects of chimpanzee life, such as adoption of new tools for drinking.[6]

Her research now focuses on how human language evolved, through studying the use of gestures in both humans and great apes.[7] The idea that a gestural system could have evolved into a spoken language as used by humans, is controversial but study of the gestures used by children before they can speak, as well as gestures widespread among chimpanzees can provide information to inform the debate.[3]

Publications

She has been the author or co-author of over 65 scientific publications, including:

Awards and recognition

In 2016 she became vice president for Communications, International Primatological Society.[8]

Hobaiter was the guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific in May 2018.[3]

In August 2020, Hobaiter was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Infinite Monkey Cage to discuss how understanding of chimpanzees has changed since the 1960s.[9]

Personal life

Catherine (Cat) Hobaiter initially lived in Lebanon, returning to the UK when she was a child.[3] She studied B. Sc. Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. After graduating she worked in commercial project management for a short time but then obtained funding for the doctoral research that marked the start of her academic career.[3] Her PhD was awarded by University of St Andrews in 2011.[10]

gollark: We actually call it "noughts and crosses" here, mostly.
gollark: Arbitrary etymological horrors?
gollark: What?
gollark: Connect 4 has gravity. Just generalise the diagonals.
gollark: I came up with that idea, but did not actually do it, because no.

References
  1. "Cat Hobaiter". University of St Andrews. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  2. "Budongo Conservation Field Station". Budongo Conservation Field Station. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  3. "BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Catherine Hobaiter on communication in apes".
  4. Hobaiter, Catherine; Byrne, Richard. "The Great Ape Dictionary". Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  5. "Online test reveals if humans instinctively understand apes". Phys.org. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  6. Gill, Victoria. "Chimps with tools: Wild ape culture caught on camera". BBC News. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  7. "Gestural Origins: Linguistic Features of pan-African Ape Communication". European Research Council. European Comission - Cordis. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  8. "Officers of the International Primatological Society". Officers of International Primatological Society. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  9. "When the Monkeys Met the Chimps". The Infinite Monkey Cage. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  10. Hobaiter, Catherine. "Gestural communication in chimpanzees" (PDF). University of St Andrews. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
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