Red-footed tortoises typically lead a lonely life in the wild, without even receiving care from their parents.
While the tortoises rarely encounter one another in the wild, research has found that these lonely ones are capable of learning the ways of the world from their peers.
In an experiment at the University of Vienna led by cognitive biologist Dr. Anna Wilkinson, tortoises could pick up hints for solving a problem by watching a more accomplished tortoise.
“It’s the first demonstration of social learning in reptiles,” she said in an article published by Science News, adding that the research is also the first of its kind to demonstrate that nonsocial animals can observe a neighbor’s action and complete a task that they couldn’t figure out on their own yet.
Prior to this discovery, the ability to learn from watching others has only shown up in animals that live in groups, such as chimps and honeybees, so social learning is usually linked to social living, Wilkinson said. Yet she challenged that idea when she saw a red-footed tortoise in captivity going to the same spot where another one had been eating, she said.
Wilkinson and her colleagues tested whether the animals could detour around a wire mesh fence to reach a bowl of strawberries or other treats.
Without training, four tortoises failed to accomplish the task. However, after observing a trained tortoise that knew how to reach the bowl of treats, four other tortoises managed to accomplish the task themselves—two of which accomplished it the first time they tried, while the other two managed to reach the treats at least 11 out of 12 days.
“This result provides the first evidence that a nonsocial species can use social cues to solve a task that it cannot solve through individual learning, challenging the idea that social learning is an adaptation for social living,” Wilkinson and her colleagues wrote in their research paper published online the week of March 30 in Biology Letters.
Read the abstract of the research paper
While the tortoises rarely encounter one another in the wild, research has found that these lonely ones are capable of learning the ways of the world from their peers.
In an experiment at the University of Vienna led by cognitive biologist Dr. Anna Wilkinson, tortoises could pick up hints for solving a problem by watching a more accomplished tortoise.
“It’s the first demonstration of social learning in reptiles,” she said in an article published by Science News, adding that the research is also the first of its kind to demonstrate that nonsocial animals can observe a neighbor’s action and complete a task that they couldn’t figure out on their own yet.
Prior to this discovery, the ability to learn from watching others has only shown up in animals that live in groups, such as chimps and honeybees, so social learning is usually linked to social living, Wilkinson said. Yet she challenged that idea when she saw a red-footed tortoise in captivity going to the same spot where another one had been eating, she said.
Wilkinson and her colleagues tested whether the animals could detour around a wire mesh fence to reach a bowl of strawberries or other treats.
Without training, four tortoises failed to accomplish the task. However, after observing a trained tortoise that knew how to reach the bowl of treats, four other tortoises managed to accomplish the task themselves—two of which accomplished it the first time they tried, while the other two managed to reach the treats at least 11 out of 12 days.
“This result provides the first evidence that a nonsocial species can use social cues to solve a task that it cannot solve through individual learning, challenging the idea that social learning is an adaptation for social living,” Wilkinson and her colleagues wrote in their research paper published online the week of March 30 in Biology Letters.
Read the abstract of the research paper
