from the no-sign,-yet,-of-any-of-them-flying dept.
Pigs recorded using tools for the first time
On an October day in 2015, ecologist Meredith Root-Bernstein was watching a family of rare pigs at a Parisian zoo when something caught her eye.
One of the Visayan warty pigs—a critically endangered species native to the Philippines—picked up a piece of bark in its mouth and started digging with it, pushing the soil around. "I said, Whoa, that's pretty cool," says Root-Bernstein, a visiting researcher at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris and a National Geographic Explorer. "When I looked up tool use in pigs, there was nothing."
Intrigued, the scientist returned to the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes frequently over the following months to try to observe the behavior again, to no avail. She hypothesized that what she'd seen was related to nest-building, which Visayans generally do every six months to prepare for the arrival of piglets. Sure enough, the next spring, a colleague returned to the warty pig enclosure and recorded three of the four animals using tools to complete their nest, an earthen pit filled with leaves. (Learn more about the Visayan and its rockstar mohawk.)
Though many wild species use tools, from chimpanzees to crows to dolphins, no one has reported the phenomenon in any pig, including the 17 wild pig species and domestic swine. This surprised Root-Bernstein, especially considering the Suidae family's well-known intelligence.
But because wild pigs are so little studied and, in most cases, either endangered or critically endangered, it may not be so unusual that such innovation has escaped human eyes, says Root-Bernstein, whose study appeared in September in the journal Mammalian Biology
[...] She says tool use is particularly fascinating to study because it's a trait shared with humans, as well as one that may highlight a common evolutionary history. "It brings us closer to animals," she says, "and helps us realize it's all connected."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @03:30PM
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @04:18PM
Pigs have been using tools for years - how do you think they kill all those black folks?
(Score: 3, Informative) by CZB on Saturday October 05 2019, @05:15PM (4 children)
I helped raise some pigs once. It was winter and their pen wasn't setup right. I built a shelter for them out of tarps, mattresses, posts and twine. The pigs would enjoy sleeping under it, then knock it down and chew on everything. They just couldn't imagine that getting bored and tearing up the roof means being cold at night. How much rain and snow does it take to learn the concept of how a roof works? Pigs just don't think ahead.
(Score: 3, Funny) by opinionated_science on Saturday October 05 2019, @05:30PM (1 child)
but those were domesticated pigs.
I'm pretty sure the ones in the wild, carry knives for protection...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @06:52PM
Carry badges and guns. And then consume or contaminate any evidence of wrongdoing...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday October 05 2019, @06:48PM (1 child)
They're very smart, that's why they get bored and frustrated so easily.
Just like with humans, if you take a smart piglet and leave him to grow up in a pigsty, you'll get a rowdy (and filthy) adult.
I knew a boar raised in an apartment, and he was as well behaved as any dog I've ever known. And definitely no less intelligent.
Thinking ahead? Well he smelled what was on the stove and didn't touch his dish full of chow. He knew there were some good leftovers coming and he wanted to save room for them. Is that not thinking ahead?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07 2019, @07:08AM
How did you get a police officer to be so polite?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Barenflimski on Saturday October 05 2019, @06:47PM (4 children)
The older I get, the more issues I find with the entire idea that if its not recorded, it must be new behavior.
Here is an example. I have watched birds hunt in packs for years. If you look it up though, there is almost zero literature about this practice. According to Wikipedia this [wikipedia.org] is the only bird that hunts in packs. Any other google search [google.com] turns up Robin from Batman hunting like here [screenrant.com], but nothing about actual Robins.
Every year at the end of summer I have watched our birds get together and hunt in packs. I've seen it in various forms. I've seen, what seems to be, every robin in this area (I've counted over 20 Robins each time but there are ones I can't see) line up about 12 inches apart and march across fields scaring up every bug in site. They'll scare up grasshoppers and crickets and whatever else may be in the grass and eat them. I've seen them march across lawns all day long through the neighborhood in a coordinated effort to root out every last bug. They hardly miss a space.
I've seen them get together with the Blue-Jay's and Dove's and go limb to limb on every tree methodically until every last Cicada is gone. I assume they're eating every other bug they come across.
Maybe all this means is I need to become a biologist for the last half of my life and make a name for myself by being referenced as the guy that saw Birds hunt "for the first time ever."
--
Hey Baren, It's really great you discovered this - Future Noble Prize Presenter
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @06:55PM
We're at a partcularly advantageous period in our history where we have cheap storage and effective video.
Record everything unusual you see and document it somewhere. This would make an excellent citation for wikipedia for instance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @07:09PM
Yes, who do you think these stairs were made for? https://i.redd.it/tnp1ftspzqq31.png [i.redd.it]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @08:41PM
Kropotkin recorded many accounts of birds and other animals engaging in cooperative hunting and other behavior in "Mutual Aid". It's a political treatise, but wonderfully written and very interesting.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Username on Sunday October 06 2019, @02:20PM
Eh, the problem isn't the lack of testimony, recordings or research, it's that discoveries are reserved for a select group of people, and any others will not be acknowledged. Since, you know, were subhuman trash if we didn't take that two week seminar on aviaries and complimented the correct person's hair. You need to have the correct politics and references to make a discovery. That's the world we live in.
Also, herons like to do a similar thing to fish in a creek near my house. They will start downstream and walk up, driving the fish and what not from the deep pools into the shallows up stream, then peck at them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @07:33PM (1 child)
Well good to get this recorded before they go extinct .
just maybe, this tool use will be enough to draw attention and enable their survival
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 05 2019, @09:11PM
Not if they can be turned into bacon. Mmmm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07 2019, @09:45AM
It's not like most are born with limbs that stay the same size from infancy till adulthood. And also not like most aren't able to relearn a limb's new size if "stuff happens" to it.