African Honeyguides

Research on a remarkable
human-animal relationship

Prof. Claire Spottiswoode

email:
tel: +27 79 232 9596 and +44 7940 287 334

Claire Spottiswoode

Biography

I am an evolutionary ecologist and naturalist with a particular interest in the ecology, evolution and conservation of species interactions. I run two long-term field projects on African birds, in close collaboration with communities in Zambia and Mozambique. In southern Zambia (since 2006), we study coevolution between brood-parasitic birds (such as cuckoos, honeyguides and parasitic finches) and the hosts that they exploit to raise their young. In northern Mozambique (since 2013), we focus on the topic of this website: the mutually beneficial interactions between honeyguides and the human honey-hunters with whom they cooperate to gain access to bees’ nests.

Aside from parasitism and mutualism, I’m widely interested in ecology, evolution, ornithology and conservation, and have also worked on avian sociality, life-history evolution, pollination, sexual selection, nest camouflage, migration, and the conservation ecology of threatened species in the Horn of Africa and northern Mozambique. Most of my work is inspired by natural history, and I strongly believe in the value of field experiments. After my PhD (2005) I worked for many years in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, before starting a joint position as Pola Pasvolsky Chair in Conservation Biology at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, and since 2024 as Co-Director of the Max Planck–UCT Centre for Behaviour and Coevolution. I am currently also Honorary Professor of African Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Cambridge.

Research Focus

Our honeyguide research project began in 2013, thanks to a chance meeting in the northern Mozambican bush with Keith Begg of the Niassa Carnivore Project. Keith showed me that here, in the Niassa Special Reserve, the remarkable relationship between honeyguides and humans still thrives. Our initial research focus was on communication, showing experimentally that not only do humans understand the signals that honeyguides use to show them bees’ nests, but honeyguides, too, understand the specialised signals that honey-hunters give to advertise to honeyguides that they are seeking their help. This inspired the programme of work we carry out as a team, with the wonderful support of the European Research Council from 2017 to 2024, and in close collaboration with honey-hunting communities and interdisciplinary colleagues from several fields.

For more information on our research on the other side of honeyguides’ lives, as cuckoo-like brood parasites of other birds, please visit our sister project in Zambia at www.africancuckoos.com.

Selected recent publications:

(Please see Google Scholar for a full publication list)

van der Wal, J.E.M., D’Amelio, P.B., Dauda, C., Cram, D.L., Wood, B.M., & Spottiswoode, C.N. 2026. Cooperative human signals to honeyguides form local dialects. People and Nature, 00: 1–13.
Kamboe, W.-B.-W., Spottiswoode, C.N., Aikins, T.K., & van der Wal, J.E.M. 2025. Honey-hunting with honeyguides in northern Ghana: Cultural continuity amid change. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 380(1940), Article 20240264.
Lloyd-Jones, D.J., Muamedi, M. & Spottiswoode, C.N. 2025 To bees or not to bees: greater honeyguides sometimes guide humans to animals other than bees, but likely not as punishment. Ecology & Evolution 15:e71136.
van der Wal, J.E.M., Dauda, C., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., Murico, H., Begg, C.M., Begg, K.S., Jorge, A.A., Spottiswoode, C.N. 2025 The economic value of human-honeyguide mutualism in Reserva Especial do Niassa, Moçambique. Ecosystem Services 101696. Read abstract in English and Portuguese here
Spottiswoode, C.N.* & Wood, B.M.* 2023 Culturally-determined interspecies communication between humans and honeyguides. Science 382: 1155–1158. *equal contributions.
Cram, D.L., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., van der Wal, J.E.M., Lund, J., Buanachique, I.O., Muamedi, M., Nanguar, C.I., Ngovene, A., Raveh, S., Boner, W., Spottiswoode, C.N. 2023 Guides and cheats: producer-scrounger dynamics in the human-honeyguide mutualism. Proceedings Royal Society B 290: 20232024.
van der Wal, J.E.M., Afan, A.I., Anyawire, M., Begg, C.M., Begg, K.S., Dabo, G.A., Gedi, I.I., Harris, J.A., Isack, H.A., Ibrahim^,J.I., Jamie, G.A., Kamboe^,W.-B.W., Kilawi, A.O., Kingston, A., Laltaika, E.A., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., M’manga, G.M., Muhammad, N.Z., Ngcamphalala, C.A., Nhlabatsi, S.O., Oleleteyo, T.T., Sanda, M., Tsamkxao, L., Wood, B.M., Spottiswoode, C.N., Cram, D.L. 2023 Do honey badgers and greater honeyguide birds cooperate to access bees’ nests? Ecological evidence and honey-hunter accounts. Journal of Zoology 321: 22-32. Read abstract in English and Kiswahili here
Cram, D.L., van der Wal, J.E.M., Uomini, N.T., Cantor, M., Afan, A.I., Attwood, M.C., Amphaeris, J., Balasani, F., Blair, C.J., Bronstein, J.L., Buanachique, I.O., Cuthill, R.R.T., Das, J., Daura-Jorge, F.G., Deb, A., Dixit, T., Dlamini, G.S., Dounias, E., Gedi, I.I., Gruber, M., Hoffman, L.S., Holzlehner, T., Isack, H.A., Laltaika, A.E., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., Lund, J., Machado, A.M.S., Mahadevan, L., Moreno, I.B., Nwaogu, C.J., Pereira, V.L., Pierotti, R., Rucunua, S.A., dos Santos, W.F., Serpa, N., Smith, B.D., Sridhar, H., Tolkova, I., Tun, T., Valle-Pereira, J.V.S., Wood, B.M., Wrangham, R.W. & Spottiswoode, C.N. 2022 The ecology and evolution of human-wildlife cooperation. People and Nature 4: 841-855. Read abstract in English, Portuguese and Kiswahili here
van der Wal, J.E.M., Spottiswoode, C.N., Uomini, N.T., Cantor, M., Daura-Jorge, F.G., Afan, A.I., Attwood, M.C., Amphaeris, J., Balasani, F., Begg, C.M., Blair, C.J., Bronstein, J.L., Buanachique, I.O., Cuthill, R.R.T., Das, J., Deb, A., Dixit, T., Dlamini, G.S., Dounias, E., Gedi, I.I., Gruber, M., Hoffman, L.S., Holzlehner, T., Isack, H.A., Laltaika, A.E., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., Lund, J., Machado, A.M.S., Mahadevan, L., Moreno, I.B., Nwaogu, C.J., Pereira, V.L., Pierotti, R., Rucunua, S.A., dos Santos, W.F., Serpa, N., Smith, B.D., Tolkova, I., Tun, T., Valle-Pereira, J.V.S., Wood, B.M., Wrangham, R.W. & Cram, D.L. 2022 Safeguarding human-wildlife cooperation. Conservation Letters e12886 Read abstract in English, Portuguese and Kiswahili here
Spottiswoode, C.N., Tong, W., Jamie, G.A., Stryjewski, K.F., DaCosta, J., Kuras, E., Green, A., Hamama, S., Taylor, I.G., Moya, C. & Sorenson, M.D. 2022 Genetic architecture facilitates then constrains adaptation in a host-parasite coevolutionary arms race. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 119: e2121752119.
van der Wal, J.E.M., Gedi, I. & Spottiswoode, C.N. 2022 Awer honey-hunting culture with greater honeyguides in coastal Kenya. Frontiers in Conservation Science 2: 727479.
Coetzee, A., Seymour, C.L. & Spottiswoode, C.N. 2021 Facilitation and competition shape a geographical mosaic of flower colour polymorphisms. Functional Ecology 35: 1914-1924.
Jamie, G.A., Van Belleghem, S., Hogan, B., Hamama, S., Moya, C., Troscianko, J., Stoddard, M.C., Kilner, R.M. & Spottiswoode, C.N. 2020 Multimodal mimicry of hosts in a radiation of parasitic finches. Evolution 74: 2526-2538.
Spottiswoode, C.N. & Busch, R. 2019 Vive la difference! Self/non-self recognition and the evolution of signature polymorphism in arms races with parasites. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 374: 20180206.
Spottiswoode, C.N., Begg, K.S. & Begg, C.M. 2016 Reciprocal signalling in honey-guide-human mutualism. Science 353: 387-389.

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News

New study shows that honey-hunter calls vary regionally like dialects

Jan 22, 2026

We have published a new study in People and Nature showing that people in northern Mozambique use regionally distinct “dialects” when communicating with honeyguides. Led by Jessica van der Wal, the paper shows that human–honeyguide communication varies across landscapes in ways that mirror regional variation in human languages. Despite these differences in calls, cooperation between people and honeyguides remains successful and important for human livelihoods across the Niassa Special Reserve, suggesting that both species adjust to one another across their shared landscape.

New paper on honey-hunting with honeyguides in western Africa

Dec 4, 2025

We are pleased to share our new paper on honey-hunting with honeyguides, in western Africa this time. Led by Wiro-Bless Kamboe as part of his MSc project, and co-authored with Claire Spottiswoode and Timothy Khan Aikins, with Jessica van der Wal as senior author, the study documents honey-hunting practices in northern Ghana and explores the involvement of greater honeyguides. We found that while mutualism persists, it occurs at lower levels than those documented in eastern and southern Africa. Honey-hunters in Ghana often visit known bees’ nests without honeyguides’ help, and discarded beeswax continues to supplement the birds’ diet. We found no clear evidence that socio-economic changes, such as increased access to motorised transport, have disrupted this relationship.

Dr David Lloyd-Jones graduates with his PhD

Sep 9, 2025

Dr David Lloyd-Jones graduated with his PhD from the University of Cape Town, entitled “Cooperation, ecology and behaviour in the honeyguide-human mutualism” – congratulations, David, on this wonderful outcome of many happy years of fieldwork in the Niassa Special Reserve together with our honey-hunter collaborators and friends, supported by the Mariri Environmental Centre.