Who has never experienced a fire drill in the building where you work? Just as humans prepare for possible future emergencies, animals also have their own mechanisms. New research from the University of Manitoba published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B has found that prairie dogs do 'the wave' to check the level of attention of other members of the group .
“I am watching and watching to see if a predator comes, but… what if the rest are not attentive? I'll do a test! ”. That must be unconsciously thought by prairie dogs, who use the famous 'wave' of sporting events to assess the attention of the rest of their companions.
To reach this conclusion, the scientists recorded these rodents and found that when the group responded with the typical 'wave', the specimen that had started it spent more time looking for food before stretching up again. In other words, the reaction of his colleagues gave him confidence and security to spend more time and attention searching for food.
As the author of the research, James Hare himself explains, "this fits perfectly with work on primates, including humans, which suggests that contagious behaviors – such as yawning – provide a window into the minds of others , who assess to others and allow us to understand a mind different from our own ".
