Have you ever seen a bird build a nest and a beaver build a dam? Or you may have seen spiders make webs and litter cats directly in the sand. Have you ever wondered where all this comes from? Even a kitten knows that it will litter its toilet without you trying too hard. So what’s the reason for this?
In fact, these innate abilities are; It is formed in the light of information coming from genes that emerge as a result of a very complex evolutionary process. Our animal friends, who can learn and adapt to new abilities according to the factors in their environment, can do things that will leave us all speechless with the genetic information they have acquired over the generations.
Animals exhibit different behaviors according to the environmental conditions.
An animal has to adapt to the conditions of its environment. For example, if the weather is very cold, they need to warm their bodies by shivering, or they balance their body temperature by sweating when it is hot.
Only the successful survive the evolutionary process.
In fact, when we understand evolution, we can better understand the behavior of animals. For example, in the evolutionary process of spiders, successful web builders survived. Because spiders without the ability to build webs died of starvation. Spiders, which were able to build their webs and eat during the evolution process that lasted for millions of years, were able to reproduce and pass on their genetics to the next generations.
The hiding feature of cats makes toilet training easy.
When we look at cats, if there is sand among their options, we see that they make their toilets in this sand and cover them. Because they, too, should not have been noticed by other predators in millions of years of evolution. For this, they skillfully covered the smell of the excrement they made.
For this reason, they had to cover their excrement with soil or sand, especially after digging the soil or sand and making their toilets. You may have seen some cats take their food and hide it in the sand in the same way. The reason for this can also be shown as hiding the smell.
Large predatory cats leave their toilets outside.
Unlike cats, we see that large predatory cats such as lions and tigers leave their feces outside. The reason for this is related to their efforts to become leaders of their environment. These animals, who want to say “this is my field”, can leave their smell with their toilets. At this point, a similar behavior is seen in dogs.
Some animals can learn from their parents.
Some creatures, such as spiders, know certain things genetically, while others can learn from their parents. For example, beavers; They learn how to build a dam or nest from their parents. “Where to find the necessary building materials?”, “How to turn these structures into a nest?” The answer to such questions is found in beaver parents, and the cubs learn this information and transfer it to their own offspring when they grow up.
Birds can learn to build a nest instinctively, as well as from their parents.
Birds can learn to build nests from their parents, but sometimes there are baby birds who are not so lucky. However, birds also have an instinctive ability to build a nest. For this, they first carry a branch to the place where they will nest. Then they add a new branch to that branch and continue this until they become a nest. When they look like the place where they were born, they realize that they have made a home for themselves.
Today we explained to you how animal abilities that we sometimes stare at openly come to be. If you want more content like this, you can write to us in the comments section.
- Sources: Library of Congress, Wonderopolis, PetMeds
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