Innovative problem solving by wild spotted hyenas

Abstract

Innovative animals are those able to solve novel problems or invent novel solutions to existing problems. Despite the important ecological and evolutionary consequences of innovation, we still know very little about the traits that vary among individuals within a species to make them more or less innovative. Here we examine innovative problem solving by spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) in their natural habitat, and demonstrate for the first time in a non-human animal that those individuals exhibiting a greater diversity of initial exploratory behaviours are more successful problem solvers. Additionally, as in earlier work, we found that neophobia was a critical inhibitor of problem-solving success. Interestingly, although juveniles and adults were equally successful in solving the problem, juveniles were significantly more diverse in their initial exploratory behaviours, more persistent and less neophobic than were adults. We found no significant effects of social rank or sex on success, the diversity of initial exploratory behaviours, behavioural persistence or neophobia. Our results suggest that the diversity of initial exploratory behaviours, akin to some measures of human creativity, is an important, but largely overlooked, determinant of problem-solving success in non-human animals.

The evolution of self-control

“…The social intelligence hypothesis proposes that increased social complexity (frequently indexed by social group size) was the major selective pressure in primate cognitive evolution (6,44,48,50,87,115,120,(125)(126)(127)(128)(129)(130)(131)(132)(133)(134)(135)(136)(137)(138)(139)(140)(141). This hypothesis is supported by studies showing a positive correlation between a species' typical group size and the neocortex ratio (80, 81, 85-87, 129, 142-145), cognitive differences between closely related species with different group sizes (130,137,146,147), and evidence for cognitive convergence between highly social species (26,31,(148)(149)(150). The foraging hypothesis posits that dietary complexity, indexed by field reports of dietary breadth and reliance on fruit (a spatiotemporally distributed resource), was the primary driver of primate cognitive evolution (151)(152)(153)(154).…”

Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

“…Comparing dog populations with 524 varying levels of experience with humans (such as pet dogs and free-ranging dogs) may help to better 525 understand whether dogs' reduced persistence could be a result of humans inhibiting their 526 interactiveness with objects. 527 22 In line with previous studies (Morand-Ferron et al, 2011;Benson-Amram & Holekamp, 2012; 528 Huebner & Fichtel, 2015;Borrego & Gaines, 2016), we found motor diversity to be positively linked 529 to persistence in both tasks, in both dogs and wolves. Motor diversity and behavioural flexibility is 530 important during foraging.…”

Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation

“…For example, if neophilia declines with age, young individuals might display more innovations in novel contexts and adults more innovations involving novel behavioural sequences in familiar contexts [26,27]. Without distinguishing between different forms of innovations, analyses might reveal no evidence of a relation between neophilia and innovation, because low neophilia adults are just as innovative overall as high neophilia juveniles.…”

“…For example, catching insects under a street light rather than under moonlight should only depend upon the motivation to approach a novel context (the unnatural light spectrum of a street lamp). By contrast, producing novel behaviours in old contexts might draw more heavily upon the tendency or ability to vary ones motor actions [26,58,70,71], and, as argued by Tebbich et al [60], morphological features that increase the diversity of ways in which an organism can interact with its environment. Some species, such as keas and Goffin cockatoos, equipped with a high level of spontaneous attraction to novelty and multiple, exceedingly manipulative appendages (beak and feet), might excel at both forms of innovation outlined above and emerge as the most frequent innovators.…”

“…The comparative approach was later extended to an analysis of behavioural innovations in primates, drawing upon both wild and captive observations [14][15][16]. The second methodology employs an individual or, more rarely, a species-level proxy of innovativeness, namely performance on novel problems, from manipulating objects to negotiating mazes to gain access to food or other desirable objects, such as offspring and nest decorations [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. This measure of innovativeness is often referred to as innovative problem-solving.…”