You dirty rat: Daring rodent shows puzzled leopard exactly who's boss by stealing its lunch (cute!)
Posted on 06/04/2009 8:46:12 AM PDT by M203M4
Research Highlights
Nature 459, 618 (4 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/459618a; Published online 3 June 2009
Animal behaviour: Pretty please
Many young animals beg for food from their elders. But, eventually, the pleading stops or the charity dries up. Joah Madden, at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his team looked to find the biological triggers that put an end to begging behaviour by studying free-ranging meerkats (Suricata suricatta) of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa over an 18-month period.
The group analysed the begging calls of meerkat pups aged between 40 and 60 days — the peak of their begging behaviour — and compared them with the calls of the same individuals aged 100–120 days. Experimental playback to adults revealed that lower-pitched juvenile calls reaped fewer rewards than the pleading of pups.
Joah R. Maddena, Hans-Joerg P. Kuncb, Sinead Englisha, and Tim H. Clutton-Brocka
Large Animal Research Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, U.K.
Verhaltensbiologie, Zoologisches Institut, Universität Zürich-Irchel, Switzerland
ABSTRACT:
Begging by young provokes adults to provide food for them. However, eventually begging by young and provisioning by adults cease and young become nutritionally independent. Why do young cease begging and so forgo food brought to them by adults? Three explanations have been proposed: (1) adults may not respond to begging anymore and cease feeding begging young; (2) young may voluntarily switch from begging to independent foraging as they gain more rewards from this; (3) young may become unable to produce stimulating begging calls. We tested these three explanations using meerkat, Suricata suricatta, pups. Playback of begging calls at groups where begging had naturally ceased provoked adults to resume provisioning, suggesting that adults had not stopped responding to begging. Experimental provision of food to pups mimicking either natural pup feeding or foraging success produced no differences in subsequent changes in begging or foraging behaviour, suggesting that pups were not assessing the most rewarding means of obtaining food and switching from begging to foraging accordingly. The begging calls of pups (aged 40–60 days) were acoustically different to those produced when they were juveniles (aged 100–120 days), and adults discriminated between rate-controlled playbacks of the two age classes of calls, delivering less food to calls of a juvenile than to the same individual's calls recorded when a pup. Adult meerkats paid attention to the acoustic structure of begging calls, and ceased provisioning when the call structure changed. We suggest that older pups are unable to produce stimulating begging calls.
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Snippets from article:
Meerkat young effectively cease producing begging calls that stimulate adult provisioning after around 100 days (Manser & Avey 2000). Our experiments demonstrate that this cessation of begging does not appear to be the result of adults not responding to begging calls after a certain period of time. Neither does it appear to be the result of pups voluntarily ceasing begging as they switch to foraging as their success at foraging increases. Instead, the acoustic structure of pups' repeat begging calls changed with age, and adults discriminated between the begging calls of individuals at different ages, reducing their rate of feeding to begging calls of juveniles compared with those of pups.
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Pup begging provokes changes in circulating cortisol levels in adult meerkats and this appears to initiate adult provisioning behaviour (Carlson et al. 2006).
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Young meerkats did not alter their begging behaviour depending on how they obtained their last substantial food item. Begging and foraging are mutually exclusive...A young meerkat that gained a substantial food item by successful foraging may be expected subsequently to invest more heavily in foraging, whereas a young meerkat that gained a substantial food item by successful begging may be expected subsequently to invest more heavily in further begging. Although our mimicry of these two conditions provoked reduced overall levels of begging calls, as previously demonstrated when pups are fed a large food item (Manser et al. 2008), the young did not subsequently differentially invest in either foraging or begging depending on whether they had ‘found’ or been ‘fed’ the food item. Meerkat pups that are successful foragers when young become more efficient foragers as adults (Thornton 2008), suggesting that they learn and develop foraging skills from early in life. Similarly, young white-winged choughs, Corcorax melanorhamphos, that depend on food gained by begging lack foraging experience and so are poorer foragers throughout winter (Heinsohn 1991). Despite this, we found no evidence that pups strategically exchanged begging for foraging over short timescales following an apparent increase in their foraging success.
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Juvenile meerkats did not revert to producing pup-like calls, even if by doing so they could gain benefits from provisioning adults. Instead, when adults were induced to provision by our experimental playback of pup begging calls, juveniles ran over to adults with food and took the food from them (J. R. Madden, H.-J. P. Kunc & S. English, personal observation), rather than attracting adults towards them by producing begging calls.
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The conflict of interest between the offspring and the adults over the duration of the begging period and attendant food supply (Trivers, 1974 R.L. Trivers, Parent offspring conflict, American Zoologist 14 (1974), pp. 249–264.Trivers 1974) appears to be mediated by adults paying attention to an uncheatable signal of offspring age, the acoustic structure of their begging calls. When young meerkats are unable to produce the call, adults stop providing food. At this point, energetically costly, but acoustically ineffective begging ceases to provide any benefits, and so young meerkats stop begging.
It's call 'weaning'
“Why do young cease begging and so forgo food brought to them by adults?
It’s call ‘weaning’”
In humans, it’s called “converting to conservatism”.
Yes, good a case made for tough love (in humans, applicable especially to "extended adolescence" - when the grown children can look after themselves but the parent(s) keep enabling or even promoting nest-squatting).
Meerkat pups that are successful foragers when young become more efficient foragers as adults, suggesting that they learn and develop foraging skills from early in life. Similarly, young white-winged choughs that depend on food gained by begging lack foraging experience and so are poorer foragers throughout winter (Heinsohn 1991).
If dogs are any indication, mine has never gievn up. He can hear a Bacon Strips bag opening from a mile away and goes ballistic.
I had a friend who owned an almost-pony-sized Rotweiler. Damn thing was a big baby - would come up and lay his massive head on your lap and soulfully stare at you . The neighbor would go into the garage and the dog would jump up and follow him. The guy would reach up on a top shelf for a bag of smoked pigs ears and the dog would nearly dance on two feet in anticipation. Told the guy he ought to put the mutt on stage.
At least I got a tail wag and a friendly nuzzle when they got their Bacon Strips this morning. The teens begging out of their duties didn’t end as well.
“””At least I got a tail wag and a friendly nuzzle when they got their Bacon Strips this morning.””””
Bacons Strips get me nearly knocked over and pounced on. I swear I think they put some type of K9 cocaine in those things.
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