PD Dr. Lorenz Gygax
Lorenz Gygax has spent his career exploring a question that sounds simple but opens the door to a whole world of insight: how do animals decide what to do with their time? Working with species from macaques in outdoor enclosures to pigs navigating cleverly designed 'small-world' environments, he studies how animals choose, prioritise, and structure their behaviour when faced with complex options.
His curiosity for animal behaviour started long before his scientific career — nurtured by childhood hours spent watching nature documentaries and wondering why animals acted the way they did. That early fascination still shapes his research today: he sees time as a kind of behavioural currency. By observing how animals invest it — which resources they return to, how often, and in what sequence — he uncovers the logic behind their decisions.
Lorenz’s scientific mindset extends well beyond the lab. He’s the kind of person who reflects on a long run or a good book and finds parallels to the behavioural structures he studies. Cooking, for him, is less about recipes and more about careful decisions — a small echo of the choice-based frameworks he investigates in animals. This blend of analytical thinking and everyday curiosity also shapes his view on how society interacts with animals.
If he could change one thing, he says, it would be simple but transformative: we should all eat less meat. And if he could ask animals a single question? He wouldn’t ask something scientific, but something foundational: how we might better understand what they feel — not translated into human categories, but in their own terms. That desire to listen carefully — to take the time to understand another being on its terms — is the thread that runs through his work and it's also the basis of the advice he offers young scientists: follow what genuinely fascinates you, and stay with it. Curiosity might not give you a full roadmap, but it rarely points you the wrong way. Wise words!
Brain Bite
When Lorenz reads, he completely forgets the world around him and blocks everything else out. What type are you?
Bookworm!
I completely get lost in a good book — 'Just one more chapter'… and suddenly it’s two hours later.
Reluctant Reader!
I often have to re-read passages or pages — 'I’ll just finish this chapter'… and I’m distracted three sentences later.
Lorenz's Science in Three 'Languages'
Baby Yoda Level
'Imagine a computer farming game. And that's basically the game these pigs in my system play for real. So, they have to decide what to do when, what to spend time with, basically to survive their day.'
Doctor Who Explains
'We are basically posing a multiple choice questionnaire to our pigs repeatedly. So, whenever they leave a specific resource, we basically ask them which resource they want to visit next. And based on these decisions, they will basically make up a time budget where we see how many times they spend how much time with each of the resources presented.'
Einstein Mode
'In ecology, time is viewed as an important constraint. So, animals have to dedicate their time wisely to the different tasks, and in this sense, time is something that is shaping behavior quite a lot. And again, in our system, we're looking at what decisions the animals take, and so how they build up a time budget, and we see how much time they spend with each resource, how often they visit the resources, and in which sequences they visit the resources.'
Coming soon…
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