Gulls, whales and cultural learning
I’m always fascinated by new research showing how intelligent animals can be, particularly when it suggests that humans aren’t quite so special as we once thought. Most recently, a killer whale at “Marineland” in Canada learned that it could
catch seagulls by regurgitating fish onto the surface of the water, then lurking below (jaws open!) for an unsuspecting seagull to swoop down in search of an easy meal. Then, the whale jumps up and has a tasty (if somewhat stringy :)) snack.
While this is pretty impressive in and of itself, what makes this so impressive is that the other killer whales in the tank eventually learned what he was doing and joined in. This includes his half-brother, their mothers, and more! This is apparently only the third species known to exhibit “cultural learning” where animals teach others to do some special trick. (The others are chimpanzees in controlled experiments, and wild dolphins who use sponges to protect their snouts when foraging on the sea floor. Wow!) As I understand it, this is distinguishing between behaviour which is simply genetic and behaviour that is learned from watching and doing. (Although, what about simple mimicking? Do animals know how to do everything from square one, or do they learn some things by mimicking? What about tigers or lions hunting? What’s the distinction here?) It’s also kind of cool that 2 out of the 3 known winners are sea creatures!
Anyway, let’s hope that the killer whales get to continue their hard earned trick, which apparently draws up to three or four gulls a day. And who knows? Maybe the gulls will become the fourth species, by learning that snatching fish from a killer whale’s tank isn’t such a hot idea. Though if enough of them get eaten, then perhaps we’ll see some real time genetic evolution!