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The Cognitive Abilities of Wild Animals
Lindsay R. Mehrkam

An overview of the cognitive abilities of wild cess that occurs in the lab; quite the contrary,
animals: what can they learn in the wild and there are many examples of classical condi-
what have we been able to demonstrate tioning that occur in the wild as well.
experimentally? In the wild, classical conditioning is widely
The importance of learning for animals observed in predator recognition and avoid-
living in the wild should not surprise us; the ance. Many animal species produce alarm calls
physical and social environments that free‐ when they detect a predator, and in some
roaming animals live in are very changeable, species, different alarm calls may be given
so we would expect behaviour to be flexible, to denote different categories of predator.
and differences in learning abilities to have For example, vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus
adaptive significance and thus have evolu- aethiops) emit specific alarm calls for differ-
tionary consequences. In this chapter, we ent categories of predators (e.g. eagles flying
will review the diversity of cognitive abilities overhead, terrestrial snakes) that in turn
among a range of animal species that have elicit different responses among conspecif-
been observed in their natural habitat. ics in the group (Seyfarth and Cheney 1986).
Alarm calls have also been studied in other
species such as ground squirrels (Spermo­
2.1 Classical Conditioning philus beecheyi), which have also been shown
in the Wild to have specific alarm calls for snakes but not
for other predators (Owings and Leger 1980).
Just as behavioural ecologists have moved in The ‘meaning’ of these calls (i.e. which cate-
recent years towards including learning as a gory of predator each type of call relates to),
function of behaviour, so too have researchers and the appropriate responses to those calls,
in animal learning been more willing to con- are often learned or acquired through social
sider the learning abilities of animals within processes (see section ‘social cognition’
an evolutionary perspective. This has been below). Stryjek et al. (2018) found that free‐
particularly prominent in the field of classical living Norway rats do not avoid predator
conditioning. You should remember reading odours or display other fear‐related behaviour,
about the very ‘classic’ classical conditioning such as freezing or increased grooming in
laboratory experiments of scientists such as the presence of predator odours when forag-
Pavlov (see Chapter 1). While the importance ing in a well‐known territory and in relative
of these controlled laboratory experiments proximity to burrows and other shelters,
cannot be understated, it is also important to suggesting that, although an association
recognise that conditioning is not only a pro- exists, this also depends on the context of

Zoo Animal Learning and Training, First Edition. Edited by Vicky A. Melfi, Nicole R. Dorey, and Samantha J. Ward.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.