Social Learning in the Caracara Chimango, Milvago chimango (Aves: Falconiformes): an Age Comparison

BIONDI LM; GARCÍA, GERMÁN; BO MS; VASSALLO AI

ETHOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2010 vol. 116 p. 722 - 735

0179-1613

Milvago chimango is a gregarious raptor showing great ecological plasticity.Their ability to explore new resources has allowed them to survivein areas with increasing human modification. In this study, we evaluatedthe social learning ability in wild-caught individuals of M. chimango.In particular, we tested whether an ‘observer’ individual could improvethe acquisition of a novel behaviour by watching a ‘demonstrator,’ andwe examined the effects of age of both observers and demonstrators onsocial learning. We measured the ability of 18 observers to open an opaquePlexiglas box containing food, and we compared their performanceto that of 10 control birds who did not watch a demonstrator solve thetask. Prior to watching a demonstrator, only two of the observers andtwo of the control birds were able to open the box. After watching ademonstrator, 67% of observers were able to open the box, outperformingcontrol birds in speed and success. Juvenile observers were moresuccessful and faster than adults at contacting and opening the box. Theage of the demonstrator did not influence the observers’ likelihood ofsuccess. These results showed that M. chimango are able to learn a boxopeningtask with a hidden food reward by observing the behaviour ofa conspecific and that this behaviour persisted over several days. Sociallearning ability in M. chimango might allow certain behavioural patterns,such as those related to novel resource acquisition in modified environments,to be socially transmitted among individuals in a population.