Animal culture

Most working definitions in the field treat culture as information or behaviour that is acquired through social learning from others and that becomes shared within a group, producing differences between populations. The emphasis is on the route of transmission. A behaviour that appears because every individual inherits the same genes, or because every individual independently responds the same way to the same environment, is not by itself evidence of culture. Researchers look instead for traditions that vary between groups in ways those two explanations struggle to account for.

This is a deliberately modest definition. It does not require teaching, imitation in a strict sense, or any awareness on the animal's part that it is following a tradition. Social learning can occur through several mechanisms, from simply being drawn to where others are feeding to more faithful copying of a specific technique, and scientists distinguish these carefully. Because of this, claims of animal culture are usually framed in terms of particular populations and particular behaviours rather than whole species, and the strength of evidence is treated as a spectrum, not a yes-or-no verdict.

The central difficulty is that a behavioural difference between two populations can have several causes. Two groups might forage differently because their genes differ, because their habitats offer different food, or because a technique spread socially through one group and not the other. Distinguishing these is methodologically demanding, and much of the research on animal culture is an effort to exclude the first two explanations before invoking the third.

Researchers approach this in several ways: comparing populations that share similar genetics and environments but differ in behaviour, documenting how a novel behaviour spreads through a group over time and along social connections, and, in some cases, running controlled social-learning experiments. Field observation and controlled study each have limits, and findings from captivity may not generalise to wild animals. For these reasons, careful writers describe cultural interpretations as well supported in some cases and still debated in others, rather than settled across the board.

Some of the most discussed evidence comes from cetaceans. Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) within a population sing similar, structured songs that change over time, and researchers have documented song patterns spreading between populations across an ocean basin, a pattern often described as cultural transmission of a vocal display. The song is an elaborate communication and display system; describing its spread as cultural is a statement about social learning, not a claim that it is a language.

Foraging traditions are another line of evidence. In some orca (Orcinus orca) populations, distinct groups show different vocal dialects and different prey specialisations that persist across generations and are associated with social learning rather than simple genetic determinism. In certain bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops) populations, a minority of individuals use marine sponges while foraging, a behaviour that appears to pass largely from mother to offspring within particular social lines. These are described as locally varying, socially transmitted traditions in specific studied populations, not as universal traits of the species.

Primates provide the classic case studies. Across different wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) communities, researchers have catalogued numerous behaviours, including specific tool-use techniques such as using stems to fish for termites or stones to crack nuts, that are present in some communities and absent in others in ways not readily explained by available raw materials or genetics alone. Many researchers interpret this geographic patchwork as evidence of local traditions maintained by social learning.

Other primates show comparable local variation. Some orangutan (Pongo) populations differ in tool use and signals between sites, and a frequently cited example in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) involved a food-washing behaviour that spread within a troop after one individual began it. These examples are valuable but also illustrate the cautions of the field: early popular accounts sometimes overstated how rapidly or how faithfully such behaviours spread, and later analyses have refined the picture. The behaviours are real and locally variable; the precise learning mechanisms are an active research question.

Vocal learning in some songbirds offers a well-studied parallel. In a number of oscine species, young birds learn their songs partly by listening to adults during a sensitive period, and as a result local populations can develop recognisable song dialects that differ from those a short distance away. Because these differences arise through learning from others and vary geographically, they fit the working definition of culturally transmitted traditions, while remaining a communication system rather than language.

Not all birdsong works this way, which is exactly why overgeneralisation is a hazard. Song learning, the importance of tutors, and the existence of dialects vary widely across bird groups, and findings from one well-studied species should not be projected onto birds in general. Some other learned behaviours in birds, such as the historical spread of a milk-bottle-opening foraging trick reported in certain tit populations, have also been discussed as possible social learning, though the relative roles of individual and social learning in such cases continue to be examined.

Used carefully, "animal culture" is a useful and increasingly accepted scientific concept, but it is narrow. It does not imply that animals possess human-style language, symbolic thought, morality, cumulative technology, or institutions, and it is not a claim that any species is building toward human civilisation. The comparison that the science supports is about a mechanism, social learning producing locally varying traditions, not about the richness or meaning of human culture.

It is also not a ranking. The presence of documented traditions in some whales, primates, or birds does not place those animals on a single ladder of intelligence above others, and absence of evidence in a given species is not proof that no social learning occurs. As always in this area, the honest summary is specific and hedged: certain behaviours, in certain studied populations, are best explained by social transmission, and that is what researchers mean when they call them cultural.

How the claims on this topic are studied and read:

• Communication vs languageHow rich animal signalling differs from human language — bee dance, whale song, and bird song.

This guide is part of FaunaHub's animal intelligence & behavior cluster. For how these claims are sourced, see animal research sources, and for the biology behind behavior, see animal senses & adaptations.