Lessons from animal teaching

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 co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Trends in ecology & evolution (Amsterdam) 2008-09, Vol.23 (9), p.486-493
Main Authors:	Hoppitt, William J.E., Brown, Gillian R., Kendal, Rachel, Rendell, Luke, Thornton, Alex, Webster, Mike M., Laland, Kevin N.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Animal ethology Animals Ants - physiology Bees - physiology Biological and medical sciences Biological Evolution Formicidae Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology General aspects Learning - physiology Pan troglodytes Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry Social Behavior Teaching Vertebrates - physiology
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Summary:	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 arguments, 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.
ISSN:	0169-5347 1872-8383