In 2020, a video capturing a rare interaction between a badger and a coyote went viral online. The video was captured by a remote sensor camera in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. The video showed two animals. They entered a culvert to cross under the highway. With a wagging tail, the coyote bounded towards the badger, then spun away to see if the badger would follow. The badger hurried to catch up with his friend, and together they ran through the tunnel.
Their playful behavior suggests that the two share a friendly bond, but can animals really be friends like humans can?
In many social animal species, certain behaviors suggest that individuals may indeed be more attached to certain individuals (in addition to close relatives and mates) than to others. Similar foraging stylesElephants Specific greetings Primates form close relationships with elephants who are not their relatives. AppearanceCrows have also been known to groom specific crows within the flock. Groom them With its beak.
“Individuals develop social relationships to navigate their environments.” Delphine de MoorDe Moor, a postdoctoral researcher in behavioral ecology at the University of Exeter in the UK, told Live Science: “For highly social animals, relationships are defined by different levels of trust and intimacy. Patterns of interaction shape these bonds. Trust grows when repeated interactions are positive.”
If animals can form stable, long-lasting, mutually beneficial bonds — the qualities we see in human friendships — then “friendship can be found in the animal kingdom,” de Moor said.
Scientists studying primates have discovered that neurochemistry plays a big role in strengthening such bonds. Catherine CrockfordHe is research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Lyon and head of the Laboratory of Ape Social Psychology.
In primates, grooming releases oxytocin, a hormone that controls behavior, “which sends it to the reward center, probably acting as a positive feedback system, making you more likely to groom again,” Crockford told Live Science. Grooming a friend also reduces cortisol, a hormone associated with stress. In contrast, cortisol levels are unaffected when apes groom group members with whom they don’t have a bond, Crockford added.
“There appear to be physiological benefits to engaging in activities like grooming, especially with a bonded partner,” she says.
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Scientists first reported on reciprocal friendships in primates through observations of matriarchal groups of monkeys, but Crockford said evidence of friendship and its benefits in other mammals has grown in the past few decades.
“Individuals who are able to maintain these strong relationships end up living longer, having more offspring, and showing fewer associated signs of stress,” she says. “There seem to be some really big benefits to maintaining these relationships.”
For example, killer whales Share information about food and where to find food; Orcas who have strong connections within their pod are less likely to starve when resources become scarce. Hyena makes new friends They tend to achieve greater success within their clan because of the support they receive for social challenges.
But friendship also comes with responsibility, de Moor added: “At some point, animals become willing to take much greater risks and much more costly behaviours for their preferred mate,” he said.
Consider a vampire bat sacrificing itself to save a starving friend. Share the food you just swallowed And then spitting blood into your friend’s mouth (if you haven’t vomited in your friend’s mouth recently, can you even call yourself a friend?).
Friendships are so strong among chimpanzees that when a mother dies and leaves her young behind, “her male and female friends” [of the parent] “We might adopt the baby,” Crockford said, adding that raising a young one can be taxing on the new parents, especially if the adopted one is male.
“His pace of life will need to slow down overall,” Crockford says, “he’ll have to carry the offspring, keep up with their pace, share the nest with them at night, and he’ll be less able to engage in social interactions and aggressive interactions with other individuals.”
Interspecies friendship
Mutual trust can also develop between species. In 2022, Groundbreaking Research Wild chimpanzees and gorillas in the Republic of Congo have been shown to transcend species barriers and forge friendships that last for more than 20 years.
Animal friendships can also be fostered by human intervention. Cats and dogs who live in the same home often form close bonds. At a private zoo in Belgium, The orangutan made friends with a group of ottersThis was after zookeepers combined their habitats. Lion and dog The two were raised together in Mexico (where lions were illegally kept as pets) and remained friendly after both were transferred to an animal shelter.
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While the playful display of friendship between California badgers and coyotes has never been observed before, de Moor said such interspecies relationships may be more common in the wild than scientists thought. In some animal groups, such as primates, elephants and dolphins, social behavior has been observed for decades and some relationships have been studied over the course of the animals’ lifetimes, so much more is known about animal friendships.
“We only know what we have studied; we don’t know what we haven’t studied,” De Moor said.
Crockford noted that evidence of friendship in animals in general, and primates in particular, sheds light on the evolutionary basis of our capacity for friendship. Approximately 25 million years agoThis means that the neurochemistry behind human friendship and related behaviors has been around for millions of years.
“These mechanisms are deep and ancient,” she says. “In an age where money, fame, clicks, and other things take precedence over friendship, this is a really wonderful reminder that at our core, we are meant to have friends. And when we succeed in having friends and taking them seriously, we live longer, are healthier, and have less stress.”