5 ms·

'What's that Skip?' Researchers say kangaroos can communicate with people

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
The paper itself: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0607 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0607 The BBC have a short video with the authors: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-55312356 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-55312356
bitwize 6y ago
Injured wild elephants have been known to go to human camps for first aid: https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/news/updates/mwende-s-father-returns-to-ithumba-for-help https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/news/updates/mwende-s... Maybe this is less surprising, though, because elephants exhibit near-primate levels of intelligence.
- grecy 6y ago
  Oh, elephants do all kinds of intelligent/emotional stuff like mourn their dead, seek revenge on humans decades after they killed a member of the herd, etc. etc.
- OJFord 6y ago
  I had a 'wow, elephants are incredible' moment recently, watching an episode of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja,_Rasoi_Aur_Anya_Kahaniyaan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja,_Rasoi_Aur_Anya_Kahaniyaa... It was just a brief clip, a sort of scene setting background shot, but really amazing to me for some reason - there were a couple of elephants being bathed by humans, looking like it was such bliss, and with total cooperation. I don't know, I can't really describe it, I know that doesn't sound that incredible, it just looked extraordinary, liked they'd lived and worked and played and bathed together for many years - they probably had - like you wouldn't see any difference if they chatted too.
  - meowface 6y ago
    Evolution has occurred over the past 3.5 billion years, and, relatively speaking, our common ancestor isn't all that distant. There could also be some convergent evolution. We're very different from elephants, but our brains are also similar in a lot of ways. There's "something it's like to be an elephant" that we can never know, but which might not be so drastically different from our own experiences that we couldn't ever envision it. That feeling we experience when we socialize with each other might very well be close to the feeling they experience, too. It may generate the same neurotransmitter activity, the same subjective emotions, maybe the same feeling of empathy. Perhaps not, but it's certainly very plausible, especially if you observe them for a long period of time. Who knows, maybe it's even near-identical in some regards.
masswerk 6y ago
I'm not surprised. It's just that we, as a species, are paticularly bad when it comes to communicating with other species, or, at least, are not that interested in it, and others prove to be better in this. We should avoid projecting our own deficits.
- vlovich123 6y ago
  I’d say we’re pretty interested in learning. We study inter species communication all the time as a species don’t we? We communicate with dogs regularly. The challenge is that we haven’t learned how to have higher-order communication which makes it challenging (we learn to communicate primarily with the species, primarily mammals, we co-habitate with). The more distant evolutionarily from us the harder it is to communicate for us as there’s less commonality and more technological assistance needed.
  - friendlybus 6y ago
    There's an attempt to refine the normal dog-human interpretative dance into a more formal setup. Some people are using buttons to get the dog to reply in a context format rather than just gauging enthusiasm for a given task. https://www.hungerforwords.com https://www.hungerforwords.com I don't think higher order communication between adults is that simple either. There's a lot of inference and deriving from implication that is prone to error.
    - crooked-v 6y ago
      Along with the dog featured on that page, there's a YouTube channel full of videos of someone else using the same methods with a cat: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMTesZlKa0Lokb7ZNqOJXQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMTesZlKa0Lokb7ZNqOJXQ/vid... The cat hasn't developed the same kind of talent for stringing words together, but has managed at least a couple of abstract things like 'mad' as a general unhappy word and 'where (item)' when looking for something.
  - masswerk 6y ago
    However, there's plenty of evidence that various species have cracked human communication, at least partly so, while we haven't that much to show…
codetrotter 6y ago
Title is in reference to that TV show about Skippy the bush kangaroo. That was an enjoyable show, and one I haven’t thought about in ages.
- bigmattystyles 6y ago
  Oh man, this is super specific and I am sure will apply to almost no one but - I was a kid in the late 80s, early 90s France and a popular comedy trio had a skit about a cult with a leader referred to as a grand guru named Skippy.(Grand guru when said fast in French sounds even more like kangaroo). My brother and I had that joke 'Grand Guru Skippy' for years! We got the grand guru <-> kangaroo part, but never knew there was a show with a Kangaroo named Skippy. That makes it even funnier. (The video won't make sense if you don't speak French, but in case there are others like me here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_3hIoUGbls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_3hIoUGbls
- gadders 6y ago
  For people unfamiliar with Skippy, think Lassy but with a kangaroo instead of a dog. If you haven't seen Lassy, I can't help you.
  - qznc 6y ago
    I also remember Fury the horse and Flipper the dolphin in the same genre.
    - contingencies 6y ago
      Mr. Ed, please. We have standards.
      - gadders 6y ago
        I used to love Champion the Wonder Horse, primarily for the theme tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i_pEYGe1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i_pEYGe1o (This was repeated on UK TV in the 70's - I'm not that old).
b0rsuk 6y ago
> Green said the research did not mean anyone should approach kangaroos in the wild with an unopenable box full of food, expecting to have a chat with them. I'm glad they are so explicit about it XD
Prcmaker 6y ago
I've helped a roo out of a tangle with a wire fence before. It was cut up fairly bad, clearly in pain, but clearly understood I was there to help. It held still when I needed it to, much like I would if a buddy were helping me out of the same fence. Untangled in maybe a minute, would have been unachievable if they didn't stop thrashing.

The paper itself: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0607 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0607 The BBC have a short video with the authors: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-55312356 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-55312356

bitwize 6y ago

Injured wild elephants have been known to go to human camps for first aid: https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/news/updates/mwende-s-father-returns-to-ithumba-for-help https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/news/updates/mwende-s... Maybe this is less surprising, though, because elephants exhibit near-primate levels of intelligence.

grecy 6y ago
Oh, elephants do all kinds of intelligent/emotional stuff like mourn their dead, seek revenge on humans decades after they killed a member of the herd, etc. etc.
OJFord 6y ago
I had a 'wow, elephants are incredible' moment recently, watching an episode of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja,_Rasoi_Aur_Anya_Kahaniyaan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja,_Rasoi_Aur_Anya_Kahaniyaa... It was just a brief clip, a sort of scene setting background shot, but really amazing to me for some reason - there were a couple of elephants being bathed by humans, looking like it was such bliss, and with total cooperation. I don't know, I can't really describe it, I know that doesn't sound that incredible, it just looked extraordinary, liked they'd lived and worked and played and bathed together for many years - they probably had - like you wouldn't see any difference if they chatted too.
- meowface 6y ago
  Evolution has occurred over the past 3.5 billion years, and, relatively speaking, our common ancestor isn't all that distant. There could also be some convergent evolution. We're very different from elephants, but our brains are also similar in a lot of ways. There's "something it's like to be an elephant" that we can never know, but which might not be so drastically different from our own experiences that we couldn't ever envision it. That feeling we experience when we socialize with each other might very well be close to the feeling they experience, too. It may generate the same neurotransmitter activity, the same subjective emotions, maybe the same feeling of empathy. Perhaps not, but it's certainly very plausible, especially if you observe them for a long period of time. Who knows, maybe it's even near-identical in some regards.

masswerk 6y ago

I'm not surprised. It's just that we, as a species, are paticularly bad when it comes to communicating with other species, or, at least, are not that interested in it, and others prove to be better in this. We should avoid projecting our own deficits.

vlovich123 6y ago
I’d say we’re pretty interested in learning. We study inter species communication all the time as a species don’t we? We communicate with dogs regularly. The challenge is that we haven’t learned how to have higher-order communication which makes it challenging (we learn to communicate primarily with the species, primarily mammals, we co-habitate with). The more distant evolutionarily from us the harder it is to communicate for us as there’s less commonality and more technological assistance needed.
- friendlybus 6y ago
  There's an attempt to refine the normal dog-human interpretative dance into a more formal setup. Some people are using buttons to get the dog to reply in a context format rather than just gauging enthusiasm for a given task. https://www.hungerforwords.com https://www.hungerforwords.com I don't think higher order communication between adults is that simple either. There's a lot of inference and deriving from implication that is prone to error.
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    Along with the dog featured on that page, there's a YouTube channel full of videos of someone else using the same methods with a cat: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMTesZlKa0Lokb7ZNqOJXQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGMTesZlKa0Lokb7ZNqOJXQ/vid... The cat hasn't developed the same kind of talent for stringing words together, but has managed at least a couple of abstract things like 'mad' as a general unhappy word and 'where (item)' when looking for something.
- masswerk 6y ago
  However, there's plenty of evidence that various species have cracked human communication, at least partly so, while we haven't that much to show…

codetrotter 6y ago

Title is in reference to that TV show about Skippy the bush kangaroo. That was an enjoyable show, and one I haven’t thought about in ages.

bigmattystyles 6y ago
Oh man, this is super specific and I am sure will apply to almost no one but - I was a kid in the late 80s, early 90s France and a popular comedy trio had a skit about a cult with a leader referred to as a grand guru named Skippy.(Grand guru when said fast in French sounds even more like kangaroo). My brother and I had that joke 'Grand Guru Skippy' for years! We got the grand guru <-> kangaroo part, but never knew there was a show with a Kangaroo named Skippy. That makes it even funnier. (The video won't make sense if you don't speak French, but in case there are others like me here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_3hIoUGbls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_3hIoUGbls
gadders 6y ago
For people unfamiliar with Skippy, think Lassy but with a kangaroo instead of a dog. If you haven't seen Lassy, I can't help you.
- qznc 6y ago
  I also remember Fury the horse and Flipper the dolphin in the same genre.
  - contingencies 6y ago
    Mr. Ed, please. We have standards.
    - gadders 6y ago
      I used to love Champion the Wonder Horse, primarily for the theme tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i_pEYGe1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i_pEYGe1o (This was repeated on UK TV in the 70's - I'm not that old).

b0rsuk 6y ago

> Green said the research did not mean anyone should approach kangaroos in the wild with an unopenable box full of food, expecting to have a chat with them. I'm glad they are so explicit about it XD

Prcmaker 6y ago

I've helped a roo out of a tangle with a wire fence before. It was cut up fairly bad, clearly in pain, but clearly understood I was there to help. It held still when I needed it to, much like I would if a buddy were helping me out of the same fence. Untangled in maybe a minute, would have been unachievable if they didn't stop thrashing.