Science & Technology - Posted by Layne Cameron-Michigan State on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 11:41 - 3 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Captive hyenas think ‘outside the box’
Animals in captivity solve problems better than those in the wild, says zoologist Sarah Benson-Amram, not because they have more time or energy, but because they are more willing to tackle the problem and are more exploratory in doing so. View larger. (Credit: Michigan State)
MICHIGAN STATE (US) — The creativity of hyenas in captivity make them better puzzle-solvers than their counterparts in the wild.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Testing animals’ ability to solve new problems has been historically conducted on captive animals, but applying lessons learned from them to those living in the wild is potentially problematic because they may not accurately portray how wild animals respond to new challenges.
Only recently has a shift been made to put animals in their natural habitat to the test. A new study appearing in the journal Animal Behaviour, finds vast differences in the problem solving skills between the two groups.
“We have to be careful when interpreting results from captive animals, as there may be extreme differences between how animals behave in captivity and in the wild,” says lead author Sarah Benson-Amram, a former zoology graduate student at Michigan State University who is now a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
“An animal that is successful at solving problems in the comfort of its cage may be unwilling to engage in similar problem-solving behavior in the wild.”
For the study, Benson-Amram gave wild and captive spotted hyenas the same novel problem—a steel puzzle box containing meat. Captive hyenas were significantly better at opening their boxed meals than their wild counterparts. The encaged mammals also were less afraid of the manmade puzzle, and they also were more creative, trying a variety of solutions.
“It doesn’t appear that these differences result from captive hyenas having more time or energy,” Benson-Amram says. “We conclude they were more successful because they were more willing to tackle the problem and were more exploratory.”
Benson-Amram teamed up with Kay Holekamp, Michigan State zoologist and co-principal investigator at the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, and Mary Weldele with the University of California, Berkeley. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.
Source: Michigan State University
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3 Comments
Villainess
Baron’s got something there! Wild animals should be supremely suspicious of metal bar boxes that stink of us. Remember, captive animals are already trapped behind bars and accept our stink every day if they want to eat.
If testing of puzzle-solving ability is wanted, it’s gonna have to be extremely natural. These scientists need to start in the wild habitat and bring the wild tests to their caged animals.
This is a poorly designed test. Culture is everything.
Tigley
I’m missing the point of this study apparently b/c I don’t see what they’re proving that isn’t already well-established. We know that wild animals foraging behavior changes depending on variables like hunger drive, age, health, predator risk, etc, and that these variables are known and more controlled in captive settings than in the wild. So a wild hyena who *can* open a smelly box by working on it for a while will likely not be motivated to overcome the risks and do so in most situations. Easier just to move along and keep foraging.
So is the study saying wild hyenas *can’t* or *will never ever* exhibit the same problem-solving skills as captive ones? That would require accounting for all of the above factors and also following them around for a very long time. I can’t imagine they did that or how anyone even could without a lot of difficulty.
Animals in the wild are more suspicious about the predatory deception that may lie behind the puzzle than those in relatively safe captivity are.