Throughout our history, humans have followed different systems of social organization: from absolutist monarchies, through aristocracies and dictatorships, to democracies of all kinds. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so much, many of our ways of governing ourselves share clear similarities with those of the natural world. A study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals that democracy is not exclusively reserved for humans.
In the Okavango Delta, in Botswana, there is a very unique species of canid. The wild dogs, painted wolves or African wild dogs ( Lycaon pictus ), although they may appear so, are neither dogs nor wolves nor hyenas. In fact, they are the only living species in the genus Lycaon .
In 2017, while zoologists were investigating how lycaons mark and delimit their territory, they were struck by the fact that these animals constantly sneezed . After ruling out a possible collective cold, they observed that the number of expirations increased during pre-hunting rituals , known as rallies . After the discovery, they soon launched a study focusing on the dynamics of five groups of licaons from the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust.
At the end of the study, the results were fascinating. “The sneeze acts as a signal related to decision making,” explained Reena Walker, co-author of the study. Considering the complexity of the organization of the pack, equivalent to an autocracy in which all individuals are subordinate to a reproductive alpha pair , the finding was unusual.
It turns out that the alpha pair does not have absolute power when deciding whether or not the group goes hunting, but rather depends on some negotiation with the rest of the pack through a vote based on … yes, sneezes.
The study reached different conclusions. The most obvious was that the more number of sneezes, the more likely the pack had to end up hunting . However, some votes seemed to carry more weight than others : if it was one of the alphas who started the round, about three more sneezes from the rest of the group guaranteed the exit.
Most surprising was the discovery that if it was a subordinate who started the voting round, it would take at least another ten sneezes to trigger the same effect and get the group going. If, on the other hand, the subordinate did not receive sufficient support, the group would rest as if nothing had happened.
Ultimately, this discovery expanded our knowledge of the complex social structure of this species, which is currently seriously threatened . According to the latest official count, there are only about 5,000 individuals left in the wild worldwide and sadly, it appears that the decline in their populations is directly and indirectly related to human activity.
Referencia: Walker, R. H., King, A. J., McNutt, J. W., & Jordan, N. R. (2017a). Sneeze to leave: African wild dogs ( Lycaon pictus ) use variable quorum thresholds facilitated by sneezes in collective decisions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1862), 20170347. Doi: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0347
