The editorial committee of the Journal of Ethology awards a prize for the best paper published in the journal, the Editor’s Choice Award, every year. In addition, the committee selects several outstanding papers as Editor’s Choice articles. I am very pleased to announce the award winner and the list of the Editor’s Choice articles for 2023.

Editor’s Choice Award

Hiroyuki Yamada and Satoshi Wada (2023) Fish yawn: the state-change hypothesis in juvenile white-spotted char Salvelinus leucomaenis (Volume 41, Issue 2, pp 111–117).

The authors found that yawning in juvenile Japanese char (Salvelinus leucomaenis) is concentrated just prior to the transition from bottom-swimming behavior to swimming behavior. This is the first study in the world to demonstrate in fish, an ectotherm, the state-change hypothesis that yawning precedes behavioral change, which had previously been confirmed in primates and other endotherms. Many of us have seen fish sometimes open their mouths wide. The editorial committee highly appreciated this study for focusing on this phenomenon, which seems to have been unintentionally overlooked, and finding its evolutionary relevance. This achievement is expected to make an important contribution to our understanding of the origin of yawning in the animal kingdom.

Editor’s Choice Articles

Taka Hayashi, Kina Hayashi, Noriko Hayashi & Fumio Hayashi (2023) Optimal pit site selection in antlion larvae: the relationship between prey availability and pit maintenance costs (Volume 41, Issue 1, pp 59–72).

Yukio Yasui (2023) Mite dilemma: molting to acquire sexual maturity or not molting to ensure durability and dispersal ability in Phorytocarpais fimetorum (Parasitiformes; Gamasida; Parasitidae) (Volume 41, Issue 2, pp 177–184).

Open Access

These papers have now been made open access with support from the Japan Ethological Society. I hope that these papers will be read by many colleagues and will contribute to future studies on animal behavior.