| Title | Meerkat Mobs Do 'War Dance' To Protect Territory | |
| Date | Friday December 20 2019, @09:41AM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the dept. | ||
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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