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AnimalWise
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- February 21, 2012
- 04:18 PM
- 270 views
Canine Comprehension of Complex Communications
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
No question about it, canines are smart and adaptable. In recent posts, we’ve featured a dingo who cleverly figured out how to use a table as a tool enabling him to reach tempting food, described research suggesting that dogs may be so in tune with our feelings that they can catch yawning bouts from us, [...]... Read more »
Pilley, J., & Reid, A. (2011) Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents. Behavioural Processes, 86(2), 184-195. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2010.11.007
Ramos, D., & Ades, C. (2012) Two-Item Sentence Comprehension by a Dog (Canis familiaris). PLoS ONE, 7(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029689
- February 8, 2012
- 11:49 AM
- 314 views
Social Learning in Tortoises
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
In a previous post, AnimalWise saluted the red-footed tortoise (Geochelone carbonaria) for its Ig Nobel Prize achievements but, in doing so, may have unfairly maligned the tortoise’s cognitive capabilities. To atone for any past disparagement, this post is dedicated to an impressive, and perhaps surprising, red-footed tortoise intellectual accomplishment. Many social animals are able to [...]... Read more »
Wilkinson, A., Kuenstner, K., Mueller, J., & Huber, L. (2010) Social learning in a non-social reptile (Geochelone carbonaria). Biology Letters, 6(5), 614-616. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0092
- January 26, 2012
- 12:38 PM
- 268 views
Born This Way? Gender-Based Toy Preferences in Primates
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
Last week, British parents who had hidden their child’s gender from the world finally revealed that their five year old, now ready to enter school, is a boy. While the parents had hoped to raise their son Sasha in a gender-neutral way (“Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?”), [...]... Read more »
Hassett, J., Siebert, E., & Wallen, K. (2008) Sex differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children. Hormones and Behavior, 54(3), 359-364. DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2008.03.008
Berenbaum, S., & Hines, M. (1992) EARLY ANDROGENS ARE RELATED TO CHILDHOOD SEX-TYPED TOY PREFERENCES. Psychological Science, 3(3), 203-206. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00028.x
Kahlenberg, S., & Wrangham, R. (2010) Sex differences in chimpanzees' use of sticks as play objects resemble those of children. Current Biology, 20(24). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.11.024
- January 12, 2012
- 12:01 PM
- 234 views
Show Me the Honey! Honeyguides and Humans Team Up at Dinnertime
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
Humans have a long history of spotting superior abilities in other animals, and then training those animals to use those abilities to advance our own interests. Everyone’s familiar with how we’ve trained pigs to sniff out truffles for us with their sensitive snouts and how we’ve domesticated dogs to herd our livestock, alert us to [...]... Read more »
Isack, H., & Reyer, H. (1989) Honeyguides and Honey Gatherers: Interspecific Communication in a Symbiotic Relationship. Science, 243(4896), 1343-1346. DOI: 10.1126/science.243.4896.1343
- January 5, 2012
- 10:17 AM
- 248 views
Contagious Yawning Spreads to Birds
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
Apparently, parrots aren’t just smart, they’re competitive too. A couple of months ago, we covered recent research findings on contagious yawning in animals, reporting on the rarity of the phenomenon and its potential role as a form of social mimicry or even an indication of empathy. While certain primates clearly do yawn contagiously and dogs [...]... Read more »
Miller, M., Gallup, A., Vogel, A., Vicario, S., & Clark, A. (2011) Evidence for contagious behaviors in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus): An observational study of yawning and stretching. Behavioural Processes. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2011.12.012
- December 29, 2011
- 11:44 AM
- 357 views
Peace on Earth, Good Will towards Baboons (and Humans)
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
In the middle of the 1980s, a catastrophic event shattered the lives of a troop of olive baboons (Papio anubis) living in the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya. While the troop ultimately survived the experience, it emerged as a fundamentally transformed society with new cultural traditions. This is its story. The troop, known as the [...]... Read more »
Sapolsky, R., & Share, L. (2004) A Pacific Culture among Wild Baboons: Its Emergence and Transmission. PLoS Biology, 2(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0020106
- December 21, 2011
- 04:05 PM
- 291 views
Walk This Way! Experienced Female Elephants Show Their Naïve Younger Relatives How to Play the Mating Game
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
If you’re a female elephant, there’s a right way and a wrong way to play the mating game. To maximize your chances of reproductive success, it’s best to pair up with a dominant bull elephant in musth, a state of heightened arousal in which testosterone courses through the bull’s body, increasing both his sex drive [...]... Read more »
Bates, L., Handford, R., Lee, P., Njiraini, N., Poole, J., Sayialel, K., Sayialel, S., Moss, C., & Byrne, R. (2010) Why Do African Elephants (Loxodonta africana) Simulate Oestrus? An Analysis of Longitudinal Data. PLoS ONE, 5(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010052
- December 14, 2011
- 10:33 AM
- 1,177 views
An Uplifting Dolphin Story. Literally.
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
I’ve always found friendly interactions between animals of different species to be oddly reassuring. After all, the world can’t be all that bad a place if two animals, separated by differing genetic backgrounds and behavioral imperatives, can find a way to reach across the biological divide and share something, something joyful and positive. Because of [...]... Read more »
Deakos, M., Branstetter, B., Mazzuca, L., Fertl, D., & Mobley, J. (2010) Two Unusual Interactions Between a Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and a Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Hawaiian Waters. Aquatic Mammals, 36(2), 121-128. DOI: 10.1578/AM.36.2.2010.121
- December 7, 2011
- 03:32 PM
- 313 views
Setting His Own Dinner Table: Spontaneous Tool Use by a Dingo
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
The name tags kept disappearing, and the staff at Melbourne’s Dingo Discovery and Research Centre was mystified. After romping around the grounds of the dingo sanctuary, Sterling, an 18 month old sub adult male, and his two canine companions spent time in an indoor enclosure that had a name tag posted on the outside of [...]... Read more »
Smith, B., Appleby, R., & Litchfield, C. (2011) Spontaneous tool-use: An observation of a dingo (Canis dingo) using a table to access an out-of-reach food reward. Behavioural Processes. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2011.11.004
Fox, M. (1971) Possible Examples of High-Order Behavior in Wolves. Journal of Mammalogy, 52(3), 640. DOI: 10.2307/1378613
- November 30, 2011
- 04:15 PM
- 374 views
Zeroing In On Parrot Math Abilities
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
It may seem surprising, but the concept of “zero” is actually a relatively recent mathematical innovation. Indeed, the first rudimentary use of a zero-like notation didn’t appear until around 300 BC, when the Babylonians began using a special placeholder symbol to designate the absence of another value in their base-sixty number system. While revolutionary in [...]... Read more »
Pepperberg, I., & Gordon, J. (2005) Number Comprehension by a Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus), Including a Zero-Like Concept. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 119(2), 197-209. DOI: 10.1037/0735-7036.119.2.197
- November 16, 2011
- 03:13 PM
- 358 views
It’s Not That Funny, the Chimp Is Just Being Polite
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
“Ha ha ha,” politely hoots the chimpanzee, not exactly rolling on the floor. He’s not laughing spontaneously or for very long, but he does want to encourage his playmate to keep up the antics. Continuing on in the spirit of last week’s post on the rodenty laughter of tickled rats, today’s post features a recent [...]... Read more »
Davila-Ross, M., Allcock, B., Thomas, C., & Bard, K. (2011) Aping expressions? Chimpanzees produce distinct laugh types when responding to laughter of others. Emotion, 11(5), 1013-1020. DOI: 10.1037/a0022594
- November 9, 2011
- 12:33 PM
- 535 views
The Ticklish Laughter of Rats
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
“Let’s go tickle some rats.” With those epic words, neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp and his undergraduate assistant, Jeff Burgdorf, went into their Bowling Green State University lab to engage in the hard work of science. Panksepp, who had been studying play behavior in young human children as well as 50-kHz ultrasonic chirping noises made by juvenile [...]... Read more »
Panksepp, J. (2007) Neuroevolutionary sources of laughter and social joy: Modeling primal human laughter in laboratory rats. Behavioural Brain Research, 182(2), 231-244. DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2007.02.015
Panksepp, J., & Burgdorf, J. (2003) “Laughing” rats and the evolutionary antecedents of human joy?. Physiology , 79(3), 533-547. DOI: 10.1016/S0031-9384(03)00159-8
- November 2, 2011
- 11:34 AM
- 578 views
A Yawning Divide? Contagious Yawning and Empathy in Animals
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
A group of red-footed tortoises ran away (rather slowly) with the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in physiology1, bringing to center stage the potential link between contagious yawning and empathy in animals. While the Ig Nobels are a tongue-in-cheek spoof of the Nobel Prizes, their purpose is not frivolous – they “honor achievements that first make [...]... Read more »
Anderson, J., Myowa-Yamakoshi, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2004) Contagious yawning in chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 271(Suppl_6). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2004.0224
Campbell, M., Carter, J., Proctor, D., Eisenberg, M., & de Waal, F. (2009) Computer animations stimulate contagious yawning in chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276(1676), 4255-4259. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1087
Campbell, M., & de Waal, F. (2011) Ingroup-Outgroup Bias in Contagious Yawning by Chimpanzees Supports Link to Empathy. PLoS ONE, 6(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018283
Paukner, A., & Anderson, J. (2006) Video-induced yawning in stumptail macaques (Macaca arctoides). Biology Letters, 2(1), 36-38. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2005.0411
Palagi, E., Leone, A., Mancini, G., & Ferrari, P. (2009) Contagious yawning in gelada baboons as a possible expression of empathy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(46), 19262-19267. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0910891106
Joly-Mascheroni, R., Senju, A., & Shepherd, A. (2008) Dogs catch human yawns. Biology Letters, 4(5), 446-448. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0333
- October 25, 2011
- 05:35 PM
- 368 views
Dolphin Curiosity: Knowledge for Knowledge’s Sake
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
You’ve just finished a delicious sushi dinner and you’re stuffed; you couldn’t possibly eat another bite. Still, when the diners next to you are served, you can’t help looking over, just to make sure that they, the other dolphins, aren’t getting a better meal. That’s right, you’re a bottlenose dolphin, and you’re curious. Curious not [...]... Read more »
Shani, Y., Cepicka, M., & Shashar, N. (2011) Keeping up with the Joneses: Dolphins’ search knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(3), 418-424. DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2011.02.014
- October 19, 2011
- 09:00 PM
- 469 views
Back to the Future – Mental Time Travel in Tropical Birds?
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
I may not have a nuclear-powered DeLorean parked in my driveway, but I can travel in my own personal time machine anytime I want, and so can you. Through what’s known as mental time travel, or MTT, you can move backwards and forwards through time – visiting the past when you remember a specific event [...]... Read more »
Logan, C., O'Donnell, S., & Clayton, N. (2011) A case of mental time travel in ant-following birds?. Behavioral Ecology. DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arr104
- October 12, 2011
- 07:58 PM
- 628 views
The Wisdom of the Aged: Matriarch Elephants Lead with Experience
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
As many people know, African elephants (Loxodonta africana) live in complex matrilineal societies, with closely-knit family groups led by a matriarch who is typically the oldest and largest female in the family. In order to appreciate the importance of these matriarchs, it may help to first consider a traditional Japanese folktale:... Read more »
McComb, K., Shannon, G., Durant, S., Sayialel, K., Slotow, R., Poole, J., & Moss, C. (2011) Leadership in elephants: the adaptive value of age. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 278(1722), 3270-3276. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0168
- October 7, 2011
- 05:41 PM
- 365 views
Analogical Reasoning in Animals
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
In today’s post, I’d like to explore some surprising recent findings about the abilities of animals in the area of analogical reasoning.
Reasoning by analogy is central to the way we think, enabling us to use familiar concepts to … Continue reading →... Read more »
Truppa, V., Piano Mortari, E., Garofoli, D., Privitera, S., & Visalberghi, E. (2011) Same/Different Concept Learning by Capuchin Monkeys in Matching-to-Sample Tasks. PLoS ONE, 6(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023809
Fagot, J., & Thompson, R. (2011) Generalized Relational Matching by Guinea Baboons (Papio papio) in Two-by-Two-Item Analogy Problems. Psychological Science, 22(10), 1304-1309. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611422916
- September 28, 2011
- 01:09 PM
- 637 views
The Orange-Dotted Tuskfish Strikes Back: Movie Shows New Species of Fish Using Tool
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
Recently, the blackspot tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii) became a media sensation when it was captured in photos using a rock as tool to open a clam. Apparently not happy with the print media attention afforded to its relative, the orange-dotted tuskfish (Choerodon anchoago) has taken the behavior to the movies … Continue reading →... Read more »
Bernardi, G. (2011) The use of tools by wrasses (Labridae). Coral Reefs. DOI: 10.1007/s00338-011-0823-6
- September 26, 2011
- 06:08 PM
- 476 views
Converging with Canines: Are Humans and Dogs Evolving Together?
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
In our man-made world, it can feel like everything is converging all at once. Indistinguishable glass skyscrapers sprout up in cities all over the globe, near identical car models vent carbon dioxide into the air on different continents, and people around the world see their waistbands expand as they gulp down the same McFood … Continue reading →... Read more »
Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2005) Human-like social skills in dogs?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(9), 439-444. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.003
- September 19, 2011
- 09:14 PM
- 400 views
They’ll Take Two in the Bush – Crows and Ravens Show Patience
by Paul Norris in AnimalWise
We live in an “act now!” world that frequently tests us, luring us with temptations and encouraging us to indulge. We may clearly see the importance of living within our budget yet still be dazzled by the shiny appeal of … Continue reading →... Read more »
Dufour V, Wascher CA, Braun A, Miller R, & Bugnyar T. (2011) Corvids can decide if a future exchange is worth waiting for. Biology letters. PMID: 21920957
Rosati, A., Stevens, J., Hare, B., & Hauser, M. (2007) The Evolutionary Origins of Human Patience: Temporal Preferences in Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Human Adults. Current Biology, 17(19), 1663-1668. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2007.08.033
Heilbronner, S., & Platt, M. (2007) Animal Cognition: Time Flies When Chimps Are Having Fun. Current Biology, 17(23). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2007.10.012
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