The Animal Manifesto (8 page)

Here is only a small sampling of recent findings:

“Queen’s University says new research it conducted shows crabs not only suffer pain but retain a memory of it. The study . . . looked at the reactions of hermit crabs to small electric shocks. . . . The crabs reacted adversely to the shocks but also seemed to try to avoid future shocks, suggesting that they recalled the past ones. . . .

“Professor Elwood, who previously carried out a study showing that prawns endure pain, said: ‘There has been a long debate about whether crustaceans including crabs, prawns and lobsters feel pain. We know from previous research that they can detect harmful stimuli and withdraw from the source of the stimuli but that could be a simple reflex without the inner “feeling” of unpleasantness that we associate with pain.

“ ‘This research demonstrates that it is not a simple reflex but that crabs trade-off their need for a quality shell with the need to avoid the harmful stimulus.’”

“A South American river dolphin uses branches, weeds and lumps of clay to woo the opposite sex and frighten off rivals, scientists have discovered. Researchers observed adult male botos carrying these objects while surrounded by females, and thrashing them on the water surface aggressively. . . . They say such behaviour has never before been seen in any marine mammal.”

“Degus are highly social, intelligent rodents native to the highlands of Chile. They adorn the openings of their burrows with piles of sticks and stones, have bubbly personalities and like to play games. But in a laboratory setting, degus can do much more than play hide-and-seek. . . . They can learn to use tools.

“Specifically, degus have been trained to reach through a fence, grab hold of a tiny rake and pull their favorite food, half a peeled sunflower seed, close enough to reach with their mouths. After two months of practice, researchers say, the degus can move the rake as smoothly and efficiently as croupiers in any Las Vegas casino.

“This is[the] first time rodents have been trained to wield tools, said Atshushi Iriki, a neuroscientist, who led the experiments. . . . But other species may soon join them.”

“Recent research shows that cuttlefish can do things that are way beyond most molluscs and only rarely seen in mammals. Their response to an approaching predator is tailor-made for the carnivore in question, for example. Not only that, they have also developed a secret communications system that could be the marine equivalent of invisible ink.”

“A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behavior usually seen only after training in captivity. . . .

“Scientists say tail-walk tuition has not been seen before, and suggest the habit may emerge as a form of ‘culture’ among this group. ‘We can’t for the life of us work out why they do it,’ said Mike Bossley from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), one of the scientists who have been monitoring the group on the Port River estuary.”

[I was fortunate to see these dolphins off the coast of Adelaide, Australia, along with Mike when I visited him in March 2008.]

“A 15-year-old South Australian school student has busted the myth that goldfish have a three second memory.

“ ‘We are told that a goldfish has a memory span of less than three seconds and that no matter how small its tank is, it will always discover new places and objects,’ Rory[Stokes] said. ‘I wanted to challenge this theory as I believe it is a myth intended to make us feel less guilty about keeping fish in small tanks. . . . My results strongly showed that goldfish can retain knowledge for at least six days. . . . They can retain that knowledge indefinitely if they use it regularly.’”

[Rory’s discovery has since been supported by more research, as reported in
The Daily Mail,
January 7, 2009, “Three Second Memory Myth.”]

“Bees display a remarkable range of talents — abilities that in a mammal such as a dog we would associate with consciousness.

. . .[Scientists] trained free-flying bees, using sugar water as a reward, in a variety of complex learning tasks. . . . Although bees can’t be expected to push levers, they can be trained to take either the left or the right exit inside a cylinder. . . .[The bees] even generalize to a situation they have never previously encountered.

“Although these experiments do not tell us that bees are conscious, they caution us that we have no principled reason at this point to reject this assertion.”

“Worker ants in colonies with a queen are physically attacked by their peers if they try to reproduce. . . . This ‘reproductive policing’ plays an important role in maintaining harmony in the ant world. . . .’The idea that social harmony is dependent on strict systems to prevent and punish cheating individuals seems to apply to most successful societies,’[researchers] said.”

“Female monkeys in Thailand have been observed showing their young how to floss their teeth — using human hair. Researchers from Japan said they watched seven long-tailed macaques cleaning the spaces between their teeth in the same manner as humans.

“They spent double the amount of time flossing when they were being watched by their infants, the team said. This suggests the mothers were deliberately teaching their young how to floss, Professor Nobuo Masataka of Kyoto University’s

Primate Research Institute said. ‘I was surprised because teaching techniques on using tools properly to a third party are said to be an activity carried out only by humans.’”

“Scientists believe they have solved the mystery of why some chimpanzees are so good at catching termites. A team working in the Republic of Congo discovered that the chimps are crafting brush-tipped ‘fishing rods’ to scoop the insects out of their nests. . . .

“[One scientist] said: ‘The chimps seem to understand the function of the tool and its importance in gathering termites.’

“So far, the team have only found this behaviour in chimps in the Goualougo Triangle. The apparent absence of this in populations in eastern and western Africa suggests that it is not an innate skill found in all chimpanzees. Instead it seems that the Goualougo primates are learning the crafting techniques from other chimps.”

“Humpback whales have come up with a novel way for getting an easy snack — stealing birds’ dinners. A BBC crew filmed seabirds carefully corralling unwieldy shoals of herring into tightly packed ‘bait balls’ from which the fish are easy to pluck. “But they discovered that passing whales would wait for the birds to complete their hard graft before devouring the ball of fish in a single gulp. The team said this was the first time they had seen this behaviour.

“[The producer] said: ‘It was like the whales had noticed what the birds were doing, and let the birds do all the hard work of creating the balls of fish so they could then come in to scoop them up. . . .

“ ‘You have to take your hat off to them — it is when you see them doing things like that, you realise that they are really very very clever and that they are aware of their environment and what is going on.’”

“Researchers have found that bearded capuchin monkeys in the wild will select the most effective stone for use in cracking nuts, rejecting those that are too light or crumbly. . . .

“Other than in humans, such tool selectivity had been shown only in chimpanzees, which are closely related to humans. Capuchins are much more distant relatives. ‘Here we showed that a species removed from humans 35 million years ago is capable of being extremely selective in terms of tool use,’[one researcher] said. ‘I’m far from arguing that this is extremely special and unique. Perhaps it is simpler than we expected.’”

“Monkeys can feel regret too — at least when playing a version of Deal Or No Deal. When given a task similar to the popular Channel 4 show, their brains registered missed
opportunities. . . . Just as contestants on Deal Or No Deal wonder what might have been, the monkeys became wistful when realising their error.

“[One researcher] said: ‘This is the first evidence that monkeys, like people, have “would-have, could-have, should-have” thoughts.’”

“The legendary ‘bad temper’ of mules is because they are intelligent animals who are mentally understimulated, claim researchers studying them. Academics who carried out research at a donkey sanctuary in Devon found that mules were smarter than horses or donkeys. The animals are hybrids of male donkeys and female horses.

“[One researcher] said: ‘The mules’ performance was significantly better than that of either of the parent species and got faster over a period of time.’”

“Magpies can recognise themselves in a mirror, scientists have found — the first time self-recognition has been observed in a non-mammal. Until relatively recently, humans were thought to be uniquely self-aware. Scientists now know that most chimpanzees and orangutans can recognise their own reflections. . . . “ ‘We do not claim that the findings demonstrate a level of self-consciousness or self-reflection typical of humans,’ the researchers wrote. . . .’The findings do, however, show that magpies respond in the mirror. . . in a manner so far
only clearly found in apes, and, at least suggestively, in dolphins and elephants.

“ ‘This is a remarkable capability that is at least a prerequisite of self-recognition and might play a role in perspective taking.’”

“A wild dolphin has been observed following a specific recipe for preparing a mollusk meal, even stripping the animal of its internal shell and beating it free of ink, a new study says. The female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin was seen repeatedly catching, killing, and preparing giant cuttlefish, which are relatives of octopuses and squid.

“ ‘It’s an example of quite sophisticated behavior,’ said[the study coauthor, who noted that] despite their lack of limbs, dolphins have developed clever ways to use their snouts. ‘A dolphin is like a genius trapped in the body of a fish.’”

“Sperm whales are one of the deepest diving whales on the planet and make dives of more than 2000ft below the ocean’s surface lasting up to an hour while they search for the squid they feed on. The calves, however, cannot make these dives and have to remain at the surface. This leaves the calves vulnerable to killer whales which often follow pods of sperm whales to prey upon the youngsters.

“Scientists. . . have now discovered the whales use the equivalent of a babysitting pool to ensure mothers can feed
without endangering their young. . . . In larger groups the babysitting tended to be reciprocal.

“[One researcher said,] ‘It is not unreasonable to suggest that the need to protect vulnerable offspring could have been an important evolutionary driver of cooperation among sperm whales, just as it may have been in humans.’”

“Dozens of people flocked the shoreline at Laniakea Beach, hoping to get a glimpse of the Hawaiian sea turtle. News of the slaughtering of Honey Girl, a frequent visitor to Turtle Beach, has generated even more interest in the threatened species. But what happened Monday afternoon tugs at your heart even more. A large male, known as Kuhina, suddenly appeared on the shore and quietly made his way to a memorial that volunteers had set up for Honey Girl.

“[One woman said,] ‘They had to move the ropes aside so he could come straight up through and just came up and put his head right near the memorial, right near the picture and just stayed. . . . It was almost like he was coming to say goodbye.’

“Kuhina stayed for hours. Volunteers say it appeared as if he never took his eyes off her picture.”

“Eleven-year-old gorilla Gana was holding her three-month-old baby in her arms on Saturday in her compound at the zoo in Munster, northern Germany, when it suddenly died. Initially
puzzled, Gana stared at the body, bewildered by its lifelessness. For hours the distraught mother gently shook and stroked the child, vainly seeking to restore movement to his lolling head and limp arms. Visitors to the zoo openly wept as they witnessed her actions.

“Hours passed, during which Gana continually prodded and caressed the dead child, to no effect. But still she refused to give up hope. Gently placing it on her back and slowly walking around the compound, she stopped every few paces to look back and see if her much-loved son had returned to life. . . .