Patterns of object play behaviour and its functional implications in free-flying common ravens.

ABSTRACT: Object play has been proposed to provide individuals with information about their environment, facilitating foraging skills and tool use. In species where object play co-occurs with locomotor or social play, it may have additional functional implications, such as facilitating the evaluation of peers or forming social bonds. For instance, ravens judge others' competitiveness via play caching and engage in social play by exchanging objects. However, most raven studies were conducted on a restricted number of individuals and under controlled captive settings. To validate these findings and to gauge the functional scope of object play under field conditions, we investigated the patterns and characteristics of object play in individually marked free-flying ravens in the Austrian Alps. Using two

SUBMITTER: Bapat A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11697026 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature