Subadult ravens generally don't transfer valuable tokens to conspecifics when there is nothing to gain for themselves.

ABSTRACT: The extent to which humans help each other is extraordinary in itself, and difficult to explain from an evolutionary perspective. Therefore, there has been a recent surge in studies investigating the evolution of prosocial behavior using a comparative approach. Nevertheless, most of these studies have focused on primates only, and little is known about other animal orders. In a previous study, common ravens (Corvus corax) have been shown to be indifferent to the gains of conspecifics. However, this may have been due to the experimental set-up, as many studies that use different set-ups report conflicting results within the same species. We therefore tested ravens' prosocial tendencies in a different set-up; i.e., we tested whether sub-adult ravens would transfer a token to a partner and, t

SUBMITTER: Massen JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4484978 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature