Page 86 - One Million Things: Animal Life - The Incredible Visual Guide

LEARNING

Animals learn to change their behavior as a result of 3
experiences, thereby increasing their chances of survival. Stick provides
a handy tool to
Learning is more common in birds and mammals that have a extract ants
period in their life when they are looked after by their parents, from a nest
although learning can continue throughout life. Learning is
often achieved through copying or by trial and error, when
animals alter their behavior according to their
successes and failures.

1

Young cheetah
practises its
hunting skills
on a baby
antelope

1 CHEETAH
The skills needed to hunt and kill Young duckling
prey must be learned by young soon learns to
predators such as cheetahs so that 2 follow its mother
as adults they can get enough
food to survive. A cheetah learns
by watching its mother, who
provides her offspring with live
prey, so they can learn by trial and
error the right ways to catch and kill it. 3 CHIMPANZEE
Like humans, chimpanzees show insight
learning—the ability to solve new
2 DUCKLING problems by “putting two and two
Soon after they hatch, ground-nesting Oystercatcher together.” A chimpanzee unable to get
teaches its young
birds such as ducks and geese show a tasty ants from a nest will figure out that
how to collect food
type of learning called imprinting. They if it probes the nest with a stick it can
learn to identify their mother, following pull out a mouthful of ants. This skill will
and staying close to her for protection then be copied by other chimps.
and to find food. Imprinting lasts for
the first weeks of life and
improves the young birds’ 4 OYSTERCATCHER
chances of survival. Eurasian oystercatchers are shorebirds
that probe soft sand or mud with their
long, strong beaks, then use them to
prize open cockles and other shelled
mollusks, or to pull out marine worms.
Young oystercatchers learn how to feed
by watching and copying their parents.
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