Michael Noonan Quotes (5 Quotes)

This is an example in which a new behavior spread through a population, ... We had the opportunity to see a tradition form and spread in exactly the way that cultures do in humans.

One study involved killer whales at Marineland in Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada. An inventive male devised a brand new way to catch birds, and passed the strategy on to his tank-mates. The 4-year-old orca lures gulls into his tank by spitting regurgitated fish onto the water's surface. He waits below for a gull to grab the fish, then lunges at it with open jaws. They are in a way setting a trap, ... They catch three or four gulls this way some days.

So it spread through the entire community.

In general, humans have long pictured themselves as separate from nature, but one of the lessons that we repeatedly learn when we study animal behavior is that animals are much more like us than we ever imagined, and we are much more like them than we had thought.

It was once believed that most animal behavior, from the food they ate to the places they slept, was based on instinct. This new discovery supports the growing view that animals like killer whales are very prone to learning by imitation, and that they are 'cultural' in nature.