Culture belongs to animals as well as humans, biologist says

Culture is not a uniquely human attribute but something we share with apes, whales and even rats, an evolutionary biologist told the conference.

Professor Richard Byrne of the University of St Andrews said the passing on of learnt behaviour in the form of survival tips had been documented in a wide variety of wild animals. The knowledge was a cultural inheritance, rather than a genetic inheritance.

"Animals pick skills up from seeing them done repeatedly. They recognise the elements and sequences involved and the alternatives," he said.

"By three years old, a young gorilla reliably acquires several quite elaborate and elegant sequences of actions for gathering its food plants. These complex techniques are necessary to deal with stings, hooks, spines and hard casings that would otherwise make the plants inedible," he said. "Unlike the impressive skills of a wasp constructing its nest or a termite building its mound, the gorilla techniques are learnt – and remarkably reliably, too."

Even rats were cultured. One group of rats living in Jerusalem, for instance, was able to eat pine kernels by a clever technique of gnawing into the pine cone from one end in a delicate, spiral fashion. The technique was passed on from mothers to their young, and wild rats that were not brought up into the colony could not perform the task.

"These rats effectively behave like squirrels," Professor Byrne said. Another group of rats living next to the river Po, in Italy, behaved like otters by learning to dive below the water and feed on mussels. That behaviour was another form of culture, he said.

Some killer whales had learnt to feed on salmon; others had learnt to beach themselves on dry land and capture seals. Both traits were peculiar to specific groups, just as certain cultural traits in humans were present in some groups and not others.

"Most human cultural differences are instilled verbally, even if they are not deliberately taught. Animal traditions are constrained to what can be transmitted reliably, generation to generation, without verbal guidance and teaching," Professor Byrne said.