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posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 20 2019, @09:41AM   Printer-friendly

Meerkat clans perform a 'war dance' to frighten opponents and protect their territory, according to a new UCL and University of Cambridge study.

Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, this is the first empirical study to reveal intergroup aggression.

[...] The study reveals that in more than half of interactions (64.7%) meerkat clans' exhibit aggression by either chasing or doing a 'war dance', where a meerkat displays an erect tail and puffed-out fur, possibly to make the group appear larger than its size.

[...] Dr. Dyble concluded: "If we want to fully understand violence in human societies, we need to understand its evolutionary roots. This requires us to understand why other animal groups fight, and what do they gain or lose from doing so. We show that although aggression only occasionally results in an individual being killed, winning fights with neighbouring groups is critical to maintaining a territory. In the harsh semi-desert of the Kalahari, a good quality territory is critical to a group's survival and long-term success."


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 21 2019, @03:27PM

    by khallow (3766) on Saturday December 21 2019, @03:27PM (#934991) Journal

    Also strangely, evolutionary theory is not being called a conspiracy theory. Tells you who may be behind it all.

    Well, what's strange about that? There's massive evidence life was created that way, no matter who is ultimately responsible for creating life. And nobody has been hiding the methods of creation. Surely, it is blasphemy to decide for God or whoever how he did something without even the courtesy of consulting his work on the subject - reality.

    Or perhaps God has lied to us and planted fake evidence to fool the wicked, "energian planes" style. One does wonder what sort of god would be the greatest deceiver of all? Last I checked, Satan covered that in the Christian churches.