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Dolphins learn tool use from peers
#1
Many of the species that use tools learn to do so from their mothers as part of their survival training.  It has been observed that Dolphins are learning tool use from their peers, dolphins of the same age group that they hang out with. This kind of peer to peer learning has been observed in great apes. Dolphins and apes are not closely related, but they both have higher intelligence. 

So hunting skills and tool use skills are taught by the mother, but they are also passed on by dolphins of the same age.  

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima...reat-apes/

The key point here is that knowledge is passed on. If a member of a species learns some better way of doing something they can teach other members of their species how to do it. This definitely needs more study. Are dolphins and great apes the only species that do this. It will take more study before we have that answer. What we do know so far questions our understanding of animal intelligence. Clearly animals are more intelligent that was previously thought.
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Catherine

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#2
(06-28-2020, 04:20 PM)Catherine Wrote: What we do know so far questions our understanding of animal intelligence. Clearly animals are more intelligent that was previously thought.
Very good point, Catherine. Humans have looked upon other animals as having very little intelligence in the past, hence over countless centuries have regarded them as "inferior". We are only as a species beginning to learn that we are very wrong.
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#3
I have watched a mouse show her baby about a danger and teach the baby how to avoid it. I have seen racoons teaching their young how to do things like climb into people's homes. Species like great apes and dolphins that hang around as young adults teach their friends. The big thing is that they pass knowledge on to others of their species.

Humans are not always that good about passing on knowledge. There are a lot of children and young adults that lack ordinary life skills.

For centuries we have looked down on animals as less intelligent. It looks like they could start looking down on us.
I know my local young raccoon is benefitting from my young neighbours inability to remember to put food waste in the locked garbage can. He feasts regularly from their mistakes. He lifts the lid and eats his fill. He can sit on the locked can while he does it. I am sure his mother taught him the difference between the locked can and the open one. He can probably tell when the locked can has been left unlocked. That is another skill many humans have failed to learn.
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Catherine

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