It is not for nothing that a dog has become man's best friend. This four-legged creature, devoted to his last breath, is endowed with an amazing ability to correctly "read" the emotions of the owner and properly react and even adjust to them. At the same time, however, for its own benefit, the dog can sometimes brazenly manipulate a person, resorting to this scam.
Dogs should have breaks too
This is an interesting conclusion made by psychologists from Switzerland in a recent study. They decided to start experiments after, in front of their eyes, one of the dogs living on the campus deceived another, pretending to see something interesting around the corner. When she ran to see what was so unusual there, the first one immediately took a comfortable couch!
Scientists laid out several small boxes in the laboratory, one of which contained a treat, and launched several animals one by one into the room, accompanied by one of the employees.
He immediately gave the smelled food to the dogs as a reward for their labors. Then the same dogs were accompanied by another employee who took the found delicacy into his pocket.
In the second part of the experiment, the first person to enter the laboratory was the “greedy” employee, according to the dogs. And, instantly realizing that this time they would not break off, the dogs with a sly look led him to the empty box, although the aroma in the room from the hidden treat was quite strong, and it was impossible not to find it.
Animals were waiting for a "kind" person! And when he finally appeared, they immediately took him to the right box!
Promotional video:
Dog handlers can also tell a lot about funny dog tricks. For example, if the dog is terribly tired of performing the same command for a long time, he can drop everything, run up to the fence, raise his hind paw and stand like that for a long time, sometimes half an hour, until he rests.
If the trainer does not like such open shirking from work and he begins to swear, the dog may well pretend that it has been suddenly and rather painfully bitten by a flea, and will immediately start looking for it. And then, fifteen minutes later, he will come up to the man and, with a guilty look, will hold out his paw. Like, don’t be angry, the dogs must also have breaks!
The smarter, the bigger the brain
In general, the widespread belief that animals, unlike humans, are supposedly incapable of deliberate deception, is a myth. As it turns out, the so-called natural selection simply requires them to constantly show not only dexterity and strength, but also sophisticated cunning. And it is especially vividly and often manifested in representatives of the animal world, which in nature live in large communities.
Almost everyone is deceiving: from mammals and birds to cold-blooded and crustaceans. Take, for example, the male common pond frogs, which, with the help of croaking, not only lure females to themselves, but also make it clear to competitors how frightening they are.
The larger they are, the lower the sounds they make, designed to scare away "small-sized" brothers and not let them into their "possessions".
But if the "little ones" really want to, they insolently begin to lower their "voice" to such an extent that large individuals immediately swim away in fear.
A similar situation is observed in the world of birds. So, the unlucky shrike, who flew to the place where the food is, later than everyone else, often imitates the cry of a predator so that his brothers scattered in horror, after which he begins to feast alone.
The familiar big tit often does the same trick when he notices that nimble sparrows have completely occupied the feeder, where the person put a handful of grain. Quite accurately, shouting in the "voice" of a hawk, the cunning man waits for the sparrows to rush away, and only then begins the meal.
There is nothing to say about monkeys. The smartest of these creatures are able to simulate a variety of situations, during which they distract their relatives from their real goals.
In one of the experiments carried out in a national park in Brazil, scientists tried to teach several primates to open special containers that contained bananas.
Immediately a leader appeared who did it without difficulty. However, he did not have time to feast on the fruits, since the stronger individuals, who only watched the process of opening the feeder, immediately took away his well-deserved prey. And then the cunning man, who was tired of feeding the parasites, figured out how to get rid of them. Shouting something, he rushed into the thicket. The others, apparently thinking that he had found another bunch of bananas, rushed after him.
Several minutes passed, and the clever primate reappeared in the clearing. One. Looking around, he calmly walked over to the container, opened it, took out a treat and ate it. And only after that the relatives, who had been fooled by him, returned to the clearing.
By the way, in the course of tomographic procedures, neuroscientists found out that the brain of monkeys, who can masterfully circle their own kind, are usually much larger than those of other individuals.
Marga's unique voice
At first, the ability of animals to cheat and deceive was perceived by scientists as nonsense, because such actions, in principle, should have generated, in particular, within one species mistrust, which could lead to unpredictable consequences. However, in the course of the latest research, it turned out that nature only benefits from such seemingly illogical tricks of its individual representatives in the animal world.
Currently, zoologists, biologists and other specialists are actively studying the marga, a small tree predator from the feline family. He lives in the jungles of Latin America and truly filigree imitates the voices of monkey cubs who are in trouble. Parents rush to these sounds and end their lives in the clutches of marga.
In the course of observations in the wild, it turned out that this predator, using the vibrations of its voice, is able to deceive other animals, for example, large wingless birds with tinami and even agouti pigs.
In the course of laboratory experiments, the researchers plan to thoroughly understand the internal structure of the larynx and trachea of a unique animal and, perhaps, finally understand how we can teach our domestic animals to reproduce human speech.
Well, about deceivers in the animal kingdom, one thing should be said: no matter how you expand their list, homo sapiens will always remain first.