3 ms·

I don't see how this was thought to be unique to humans? For instance, it seems to be common knowledge that big cats have to teach their kids to hunt by showing

I don't see how this was thought to be unique to humans? For instance, it seems to be common knowledge that big cats have to teach their kids to hunt by showing, for instance. Edit: Going to the source papers clarifies a little, the hypothesis they're challenging relates specifically to social learning for "the knowledge of the production of a particular trait" and not learning in terms of recreating existing behaviors. This would probably also be why pets and birds would be excluded. While they can learn and teach each other various things, most of those things are not relating to production and can be difficult to separate from behaviors that should be considered to already be part of the species' repertoire. Bird song or whale song may be a sort of learned "culture" but it's so endemic to their species that it's treated as distinct from what's being discussed.

rtsil 3y ago
My cat didn't knew how to jump over the chain link fence until he saw a neighbor's cat do it. But the point of this study is about extremely difficult problems that an animal couldn't solve by itself, unlike my fence that the cat would have probably solved by brute force given a certain time.
b112 3y ago
I have witnessed an older crow, teaching a younger one, to use subsonic sound, in the rain, to find june big grubs under my lawn.
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  How were able to detect the subsonic sound?
  - b112 3y ago
    Many animals are able to hear outside of our range of hearing. I tried to capture in when I noticed it happening on 2015, but you can't easily hear the sound, some of it was audible to me, but not with the camera I had (I had to grab the closest thing I could find). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYl_d7dc-EY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYl_d7dc-EY If you watch at 0:50, you'll see in a few seconds the crow is doing a whole-body movement. That's it making the sound, which I could feel against my skin. If you crank it, you can hear the weird, audible part of it. Then, before they really went to work again... one of the crows noticed me. And you can see at the end, the other gets really pissed that it didn't notice me. Basically, he walks to where he can see in my house, spies me, and is all "YOU BASTARD!" Part of an email I sent to a friend at the time: -- This is the first time I've noticed this behaviour. Crows can make sounds, and hear sounds, outside of our range of hearing. And, it was raining. Soaking the topsoil. It is also grub season. Soon, June bugs will appear, but right now they are in grub form, but pupating. I'm not sure if the added density helps in detection or not. You'll likely have to turn this up. I had to grab the nearest device I had, so the resolution sucks too. Watch the larger crow, as it walks around, sounding for grubs. It did this over a large portion of my lawn.. systematically. Wild stuff. --
fasthands9 3y ago
I am still pretty intrigued by the whole topic even if it's a spectrum. From what I've read, beavers build dams instinctually if they hear running water. This applies to beavers raised in captivity that were separated from their parents. It's both an unusual behavior and one that seems (on the surface) like it would take plenty of reasoning.

rtsil 3y ago

My cat didn't knew how to jump over the chain link fence until he saw a neighbor's cat do it. But the point of this study is about extremely difficult problems that an animal couldn't solve by itself, unlike my fence that the cat would have probably solved by brute force given a certain time.

b112 3y ago

I have witnessed an older crow, teaching a younger one, to use subsonic sound, in the rain, to find june big grubs under my lawn.

tomjakubowski 3y ago
How were able to detect the subsonic sound?
- b112 3y ago
  Many animals are able to hear outside of our range of hearing. I tried to capture in when I noticed it happening on 2015, but you can't easily hear the sound, some of it was audible to me, but not with the camera I had (I had to grab the closest thing I could find). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYl_d7dc-EY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYl_d7dc-EY If you watch at 0:50, you'll see in a few seconds the crow is doing a whole-body movement. That's it making the sound, which I could feel against my skin. If you crank it, you can hear the weird, audible part of it. Then, before they really went to work again... one of the crows noticed me. And you can see at the end, the other gets really pissed that it didn't notice me. Basically, he walks to where he can see in my house, spies me, and is all "YOU BASTARD!" Part of an email I sent to a friend at the time: -- This is the first time I've noticed this behaviour. Crows can make sounds, and hear sounds, outside of our range of hearing. And, it was raining. Soaking the topsoil. It is also grub season. Soon, June bugs will appear, but right now they are in grub form, but pupating. I'm not sure if the added density helps in detection or not. You'll likely have to turn this up. I had to grab the nearest device I had, so the resolution sucks too. Watch the larger crow, as it walks around, sounding for grubs. It did this over a large portion of my lawn.. systematically. Wild stuff. --

fasthands9 3y ago

I am still pretty intrigued by the whole topic even if it's a spectrum. From what I've read, beavers build dams instinctually if they hear running water. This applies to beavers raised in captivity that were separated from their parents. It's both an unusual behavior and one that seems (on the surface) like it would take plenty of reasoning.