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Yes, it seems very plausible that a cat might recognise individual kittens. I think there are also documented cases of birds noticing if one of their newly hat
by bloak 8y ago
Yes, it seems very plausible that a cat might recognise individual kittens.
I think there are also documented cases of birds noticing if one of their newly hatched young is missing. In this case, because they're newly hatched, one might guess that the parent is not recognising each one. An experiment is called for: swap the young of two parents and see if both parents are happy with the right number. I suspect someone has already tried this, but I can't immediately find any reports.
- Pulcinella 8y agoYeah I imagine it’s much easier for animals to recognize individuals of their own species than individuals of another. e.g. Humans have specialized brain circuitry for recognizing human faces, but all horse or bird faces basically look the same to us. A bird might easily think all humans look basically the same but obviously each bird is totally different.
- Sharlin 8y agoWith cats, like with dogs, recognizing conspecifics is most likely highly dependent on scent, a sensory modality whose richness in those and many other species we humans can hardly imagine.
- creep 8y agoIt could be based on scent as well. Swapping young would introduce another set of pheromones from the other mother.
- KineticLensman 8y ago> I think there are also documented cases of birds noticing if one of their newly hatched young is missing. Cuckoo success would seem to suggest that as long as there is something in the nest demonstrating the correct 'feed me' cues, the adults will feed it