Posted on 10/31/2019 11:43:41 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Dolphins, chimpanzees, and crows all use tools to help accomplish tasks. Now, pigs have joined the club, National Geographic reports. For the first time, researchers have caught a species of swine called the Visayan warty pig using pieces of bark as a shovel to move dirt around in their nests. Researchers filmed several of the pigs in captivity as they got their nests ready to welcome piglets in the spring, and observed the animals using tools 11 times over 2 years. The team also sprinkled a few spatulas around the enclosure, in case the pigs might prefer a more easily held tool. For the most part, the swine stuck to natural tools such as bark or sticks, ignoring the spatulas, the team reports in Mammalian Biology. The researchers did not catch wind of any pigs using the tool of political power, however, so readers can rest easy knowing that Animal Farm is still fiction. For now.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencemag.org ...
I have a huge double walnut tree in my front yard. I gad a Mockingbird who would land in the driveway where I run over walnuts, and he would pick up a broken walnut then flit up into the walnut tree and test spots where limbs forked, to find a suitable crook to place the walnut so he could peck the fruit out. I thought that was pretty clever for a bird.
You beat me by just a few minutes.
pffft- i thought everyone knew pigs used tools? I put a pig in our garden with a rototiller, and came back several hours later, and the garden was all rototilled-
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”
George Orwell
Animal Farm
A “tool” is any object that is not your (or the pig’s or the chimp’s, ect) body but which you (they) use, using some part of your (their) body to manipulate to perform a task.
In the pigs case, if they only ever dug in the ground with their snout and/or feet, you could say they did not use tools.
Since they do choose particular types of objects, which they hold in their mouth, to dig with, what they chose to dig with is classically a “tool” and what they are doing is using tools. It may be unsophisticated and lacking the human ability of building our own tools, it is still tool use in its most basic, rudimentary form.
All kinds of animals, insects included, use tools; unsophisticated, rudimentary, and natural objects but still tools.
Animals aren’t nearly as dumb as humans want to believe.
About 3 years ago I watched several baby squirrels pull pieces of bark from a tree and then play catch with them between themselves. The used the bark like any kid playing with a ball. This was the first time I ever say baby critters play with homemade toys.
If you’d taken video of that and posted it on the u-toobz, you’d probably be a zillionaire, or something like that.
(I, for one, would love to see baby squirrels at play)
Her gavel seems to have shrunk since she waved it around while trying to incite Tea Partiers.
Hahahaha! That’s a classic.
Oops. This is not about cops blowing up that guy’s house.
Otters put stones on their stomachs and break open shellfish.
Swine do NOT sleep in their “output”. Regardless how many are in a pen, they will select one corner of their pen in which to do their business, and the remaining space remains unsoiled.
How dare you insult pigs like that. Take it back... Take it back, I tell you. Pigs are no such thing as Nazi Pelousy.
Doesn’t matter how smart they are, bacon is still delicious.
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