Cooperation between animals of their own species is commonplace so I am particularly interested in research which explores such natural instinct between animals which belong to different species both in their natural wild habitat and when reared as home pets(how are their behaviour/responses similar and different between these two contrasting settings/living circumstances)? Are cross-species animal groups capable of forming "friendships"?
Yes, I've seen cats as friends of racoons and ducks and a horse!
Hi,
There are quite few discussions on inter-species interaction, most especially, between human beings and animals. For instance, you may want to check this review by Zulkifli 2013: Article Review of human-animal interactions and their Impact on anim...
Concerning interaction among different animal species, kindly check the following references (among other ones):
Wey et al. 2008: Article Wey T, Blumstein DT, Shen W, Jord??n F. Social network analy...
Smuts 2006: Between Species: Science and Subjectivity
Article Between Species: Science and Subjectivity
Cheney and Seyfarth 1992:
How monkeys see the world: Inside the mind of another species
And of course:
- Learning From Animal Friendships: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/science/so-happy-together.html
Best wishes
An interesting question. While I don't think of mixed species flocks of birds as being overtly altruistic, they certainly look out for one another in some sense. Check out some of the literature on this and other bird mutualisms by authors such as Barnard and Stephens.
Thanks! I just happen to discover this youtube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJR8Obayges&feature=share
which can help generate a number of naturalistic observations and questions about this topic. No offence, but it occurs to me that this can be even more resourceful than what is currently available in the literature. A video paints a million words. Some potential points to discuss:
1. Self-Other Awareness and Memory
How does an animal perceive and relate the need of help/rescue another animal of a different species to its own past experience of need or danger? How does recall/retrieval of episodic memories differ between pet animals, e.g. cats and rabbits, and humans? Are they aware of the time lag between the actual occurrence of events and the future point in time during which such memories are being retrieved?
2. Cross-species Communication
How would one rate the level of explicitness in non-verbal communication between the cat in need and the rabbit helper while the help was being performed? It appears that active mutual communication is ongoing through paw gestures and the rabbit understood very accurately when to start digging the ground and when to stop. Fascinating!
3. Cognition and Problem-Solving
Within its own level of cognitive ability, the rabbit is able to perceive the problem and work out an accessible and feasible solution to solve it. I would say that its solution is comparable to what a human with normal intelligence would choose to do under such a circumstance. The solution is well thought out in a "cognitively" clever way by the rabbit and can be performed within the limits of its physical ability. This is a remarkable demonstration of animal intelligence.
I'm currently studying the equine communication system, and we have a free herd that live close to the woods. The horses take heed to the warning sounds of the birds, and will take to flight if the birds give off these warning sounds. We see a mix of communication between the rabbits, pheasants, and tree birds with the horses.
A good place to start is in the Jane Goodall literature, it goes into reactions to other species in there.
The Behaviour of Free-living Chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve
Author links open overlay panelJaneVan Lawick-Goodall
If you search for studies that focus on free activity of the animals without human interaction, that may be of help.
Mel
< Are cross-species animal groups capable of forming "friendships"? >
Certainly. If you are interested in the topic itself, not just scientific research, just Google "cross-species friendships"(or any similar phrase). The internet loves stories about predator-prey friendships (e.g., cats with mice), but there are numerous other examples of inter-species friendships on the Web --- and (as someone pointed out) the most obvious example is human pet-keeping. The most obvious explanations for such things are misplaced genetic motivations for companionship, maternal care-taking, sexual interest, etc, but such relationships are not at all uncommon.
As for the video, don't over-interpret. I'm not even convinced the cat was truly "stuck." Rabbits dig. It's what they do. If the cat and rabbit were friends, perhaps the rabbit was trying to access the cat, not "free" it. It looked to me as if the cat was playing with the rabbit. I certainly don't see the video as evidence of any amazing cognitive ability on the part of the rabbit. Rabbits are not people, and anthropomorphic interpretations of their actions are more likely to be wrong than to be right. It is better to be entirely objective about what you're seeing, and consider all possible explanations. Occam's Razor is not just good philosophy; it's a good scientific approach as well.
If I were to say that the "Rabbit and Cat" video was recorded as part of an animal science professor's naturalistic observation series of studies, how would your prediction be in terms of the reaction to and interpretation of the video by the academic audience? I wish I could conduct such a study in the future.
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