Lessons from Animal Teaching

William John Edward Hoppitt, Gillian Ruth Brown, R Kendal, Luke Edward Rendell, A Thornton, Michael Munro Webster, Kevin Neville Laland

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Many species are known to acquire valuable life skills and information from others, but until recently it was widely believed that animals did not actively facilitate learning in others. Teaching was regarded as a uniquely human faculty. However, recent studies suggest that teaching might be more common in animals than previously thought. Teaching is present in bees, ants, babblers, meerkats and other carnivores but is absent in chimpanzees, a bizarre taxonomic distribution that makes sense if teaching is treated as a form of altruism. Drawing on both mechanistic and functional argument we integrate teaching with the broader field of animal social learning, and show how this aids understanding of how and why teaching evolved, and the diversity of teaching mechanisms.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)486-493
Number of pages8
JournalTrends in Ecology and Evolution
Volume23
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2008

Keywords

  • GOLDEN LION TAMARINS
  • WILD PIED BABBLERS
  • LEONTOPITHECUS-ROSALIA
  • FEEDING BEHAVIOUR
  • DOMESTIC CHICKS
  • ORCINUS-ORCA
  • EVOLUTION
  • MECHANISMS
  • PREDATION
  • CULTURE

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