News from the Animal Kingdom
Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic one day, I saw a squirrel run out onto the highway to collect the crushed, lifeless body of a fellow squirrel. Considering that rodents were heretofore thought to lack the capacity for empathy, it was a most peculiar site. A new study reported in the journal Science this month, however, finds that rodents–rats, specifically–may indeed be empathic creatures. From the study's abstract:
Whereas human pro-social behavior is often driven by empathic concern for another, it is unclear whether nonprimate mammals experience a similar motivational state. To test for empathically motivated pro-social behavior in rodents, we placed a free rat in an arena with a cagemate trapped in a restrainer. After several sessions, the free rat learned to intentionally and quickly open the restrainer and free the cagemate. Rats did not open empty or object-containing restrainers. They freed cagemates even when social contact was prevented. When liberating a cagemate was pitted against chocolate contained within a second restrainer, rats opened both restrainers and typically shared the chocolate. Thus, rats behave pro-socially in response to a conspecific’s distress, providing strong evidence for biological roots of empathically motivated helping behavior.
Does all this indicate that animals may be capable of altruism? Well no, not exactly. Scientists say that it's likely that the free rats liberate the captives to relieve their own stress rather than the stress of the captive rats. But even if that's the case, says neuroscientist Jeffrey Mogil who showed emotional contagion in mice in a 2006 study, "I'm not so sure that's different from humans."
The Washington Post has a more thorough write-up of the remarkable findings here.
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May '10
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
Well, that explains a lot...
Apr '11
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
Awe...animals are people too. But, hopefully not too much like people or else modern biology would be guilty of the most terrible crimes against humanity....in my defense I work on plants.
Jul '10
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic one day, I saw a squirrel run out onto the highway to collect the crushed, lifeless body of a fellow squirrel.
He was probably just going to rifle through the dead one's wallet.
Jan '11
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
Clearly the rodents were not exposed to Marxist orientation for 13 years or they would have been fine seeing the other enslaved to a top-down central-planning scientist conducting the experiments.
When scientists can get a group of rodents to individually earn cheese and then watch their jealousies play out as they institute voting and cheese taxation schemes, I'll sit up and take notice.
Mar '11
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
"Considering that rodents were heretofore thought to lack the capacity for empathy, it was a most peculiar site."
I knew there were some squirrels on the web, but this is too much.
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 3:57amDec '10
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
While I don't dispute that animals may have empathy, it is possible that the live squirrel collected the dead squirrel for one reason: lunch.
May '11
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
Hmm. Not long ago I saw a large hawk fly off with a baby squirrel from my yard. The mother squirrel sat in her tree and made the most heartbreaking racket for hours. Not that I can speak the squirrel language but it didn't sound like laughter.
Jul '10
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
Wylee Coyote
He was probably just going to rifle through the dead one's wallet. · Dec 9 at 12:31am
While occupying the highway.
Edited on Dec 9, 2011 at 8:02amOct '10
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
Jimmy Carter
Wylee Coyote
He was probably just going to rifle through the dead one's wallet. · Dec 9 at 12:31am
While occupying the highway. · Dec 9 at 7:58am
Edited on Dec 09 at 08:02 am
Looking for an animal human connection ? Good definition posed...
Nov '10
Re: News from the Animal Kingdom
The closer an animal is to us on the phylogenic scale, the more we have in common with him. The mouse is very close. We share much more than we realize. I am not surprised to learn that there might be vestiges of altruism is mice.