Lucy Cooke

Swipe over for some frog news. 🐸

Some of you might not know this, but I actually started my career defending amphibians. And yes, I did call it 'The Amphibian Avenger', which goes a long way to explaining the rather fabulous costume...

It was an entire blog dedicated to travelling the world, telling stories about frogs and the people who study them. Remarkably, this led to one of my first Nat Geo shows, which just goes to show that backing the underdog can occasionally pay off.

So when frogs start doing something new, like pollinating, I feel obliged to report it.

Because yes, we all thought pollination was safely handled by bees, birds and the occasional overachieving bat. But now, a Brazilian frog appears to be muscling in.

This little amphibian has been caught visiting flowers and carrying pollen, making it a strong contender for the first known pollinating frog. It’s a useful reminder that nature doesn’t care much for the boxes we put it in, or indeed whether anyone is sticking to their job description.

Original reporting done by science.org

Happy Earth Day. A day when, collectively, we remember that this planet is completely bonkers… and rather wonderful for it.

Frankly, I wish we made a habit of this sort of appreciation more often. We’re all noticeably less unhinged when we step outside and smell the trees.

My work has given me the outrageous privilege of hiking through rainforests, chilling by oceans, and gawping at creatures that look like evolution briefly lost the plot. It’s a privilege I’d very much like to see continue.

So yes, on this particular Earth Day, I find myself indoors, hunched over the final pages of a new book, dreaming longingly of mud, humidity, and things with too many legs. Counting down the days until I can escape and let the natural world recalibrate my brain.

Because it does that, doesn’t it? Sorts us out.

So go on, celebrate properly. Get outside. Breathe something that isn’t recycled office air. Flip a log. Admire the weird life of the woodlouse. Be a feral child again. There’s almost certainly something delightfully odd waiting.

And if you're breathing in the trees with me, I’ll be back in Costa Rica this January at . Come along. It’ll be fun. DM me if you're interested.

My Costa Rica Retreat | An Invitation to Slow Down (Preferably with Sloths) - https://mailchi.mp/bd314874a67d/come-to-costa-rica-with-me

Whoever thought my B*tch would become a core textbook at an American university?

Not me.

But I am delighted she is teaching the students at all about Patriarchal gender bias in the animal kingdom. The students told me she's their favourite textbook ever, and proved it by showing me how much they had underlined and highlighted their copies.

I loved spending time with the students in their biology classes, answering their thoughtful questions. And it was an absolute honour to deliver the annual Smith Lecture to a full house of engaged students and adults from the town of Davidson.

Thank you Davidson College for making this b*tch very happy indeed.

This is honestly my favourite job in the world.

I’ve become a regular on Nature Table, and every time I do it, I get my fill of belly laughs. Sue Perkins is a bundle of curiosity and the results are always hilarious.

I’m especially thrilled this season because I get to both launch the series and close it.

Be sure to give it a listen, the new series of Nature Table - Episode 1 airs tomorrow at 18:30 on BBC Radio 4, all about puffins and armadillos. I’m on with the brilliant entomologist Karim Vahed and comedian Amy Gledhill ().

You’ll learn why armadillos are basically Trump’s worst nightmare, how they have evolved to be the ultimate Latin American migrants into North America, and why puffins treat their beaks like a seasonal fashion accessory.

If you fancy a listen, I've added the link to my link in bio.

Quite the week last week... 🥰

I popped my QI () cherry which was outrageously good fun. I joined , , , and host .1958 for the upcoming X series (airing later this year/early next). Expect strange and wonderful facts about sloths, anteaters, and frogs.

Then I swapped panel show chaos for something equally inspiring: hosting ZSL’s () Breaking Barriers: Women in Wildlife event for International Women’s Day.

"Finding your voice and being proud of your voice.”

Conservation started out as a very white male sport, that grew out of hunting. It was an honour to share the stage with four ZSL women at the forefront of reinventing a more inclusive female approach: Tina Campanella, Lucy Archer, Heidi Ma and Olivia Wilson Holt were all utterly inspiring.

🐸 Two stages. Lots of brilliant people. One very happy zoologist.

The jacana’s reputation swings wildly between saint and sinner.

This tropical freshwater wader (think moorhen on stilts) is known variously as the Jesus bird or the pr******te bird. The holy nickname comes from its enormous feet, which spread its weight so evenly it appears to walk on water. The solicitous one refers to the female’s prodigious s*xual appetite, among the greediest in the bird world. She mates with multiple males, often several times an hour.

Whether she's saint or sinner, the female jacana seems to have life figured out. As I discovered when I spent a sticky morning looking for them on lake Nicaragua.

Large, beefy females battled noisily on lily pads, jousting with long yellow bills, while the much smaller males quietly built nests and tended chicks. He is a candidate for Nature's best dad and even protects his charges by carrying them around in his wing pits. This is the jacana way. Females are up to 75% heavier and twice the size of males, and they’re the dominant s*x. Each female maintains a harem of up to four “husbands” who build nests, incubate eggs, and raise the young.

Aside from laying eggs, females play little role in childcare. Their job is bodyguard, not nanny. Prime territory, rich in floating vegetation for buoyant nests and crawling with insects, is fiercely contested, and females spend their time defending it from rival jacanas and egg-thieving birds like purple gallinules.

After mating dozens of times with multiple males, a female lays up to four eggs per nest. Each male then spends around three months raising chicks, some of which may not be his own. This apparent “cuckoldry” has long puzzled ornithologists, but is widespread in nature. I will be exploring this so-called 'Darwinian paradox' in my new book, which is almost finished....spoiler these cucks are not the evolutionary 'losers' we have been led to believe.

Celebrating by honouring the badass women scientists who inspired my writing of B*TCH:

Slide 2. Andrea Baden revealing the maple-syrup scent of ruffed lemurs and the power of communal motherhood.

Slide 3. The Broads Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Jeanne Altmann & Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, the rabble-rousing matriarchs who challenged Darwin’s boys’ club.

Slide 4: Lindsay Young uncovering long-term female–female pairing in Laysan albatrosses.

Slide 5: Joan Roughgarden trailblazing research into the dazzling diversity of s*x beyond the binary.

Slide 6: Amy Parish showing how bonobo sisterhood (sealed with ecstatic frottage) keeps patriarchy in check.

Slide 7: Gail Patricelli: strapping cameras to a robot bird and dismantling the myth of the “coy” female.

Slide 8: Rebecca Lewis revealing how sifaka females rule with pheromones… and fists.

Slide 9. Dr. Deborah Giles turning endangered orca p**p into life-saving data for a population on the brink.

👊 Saluting all of the extraordinary women expanding science, challenging bias, and reshaping the story of females, in nature and beyond.

Late last year, I spoke at KPMG’s Rising Stars Networking Dinner, an event designed to connect and celebrate women across their alliance. As approaches, I’ve been thinking about the power of rooms built intentionally for women.

The energy is different.

I spoke about what evolution really says about female power and how outdated biological myths still shape leadership stereotypes today. (Yes, the naked mole-rat featured.)

The conversations afterwards were the best part: senior leaders and rising stars alike reflecting on how science can reframe confidence, ambition, and authority.

One line from their feedback stayed with me: “Engaging, insightful, and refreshingly original… Who knew you could learn so much from a naked mole-rat?”

I love bringing evolutionary biology into corporate spaces, especially those committed to advancing women in leadership.