Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus
Creationists insist that humans are a special creation apart from all the other animals, and normally cite a list of 'uniquely human' abilities as evidence, oblivious of the fact that every species has some unique characteristics - which is why they are a different species.
One by one, with monotonous regularity, over the last 50 years or so, the list has shrunk and one by one these 'uniquely human' characteristics have been shown to be possessed by at least one other species. We used to be the 'only' tool-making species, now there must be about a dozen species who make and/or use tools, including chimpanzees, crows, bumblebees and sea otters.
In fact, what creationists used to claim 'proved' the special creation of humans, because that ability is present in one of more of our great ape relatives, it not only fails to 'prove' special creation but, with delicious irony, actually supports common origins.
What other animals have been shown to have abilities that were once considered unique to humans? Many animals have demonstrated abilities that were once considered unique to humans, showcasing advanced cognitive, emotional, and social skills. Here are some examples:And now another species with 'uniquely human' abilities can be added to the list - the fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus.
- Tool Use:
- Chimpanzees: Use sticks to extract termites from mounds and stones to crack nuts.
- Crows and Ravens: Use sticks to extract insects and have been observed creating hooks out of wire to retrieve food.
- Problem Solving and Planning:
- Octopuses: Can unscrew jar lids to obtain food and are known to plan escape routes.
- Elephants: Display problem-solving abilities in tasks that require cooperation and understanding of physical properties.
- Complex Communication:
- Dolphins: Use a variety of vocalizations and body language to communicate, including signature whistles that function like names.
- Parrots: Some species can learn and use human language to communicate in context-appropriate ways.
- Empathy and Altruism:
- Bonobos and Chimpanzees: Show empathy by consoling others in distress and sharing food.
- Elephants: Demonstrate altruism by helping injured or distressed members of their herd and mourning their dead.
- Self-Recognition:
- Great Apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans): Recognize themselves in mirrors, indicating self-awareness.
- Dolphins: Show signs of self-recognition in mirror tests.
- *Culture and Traditions:
- Whales: Exhibit cultural behaviors such as song variations that are learned and passed down through generations.
- Japanese Macaques: Wash sweet potatoes in water, a behavior that spread through social learning.
- Mathematical Abilities:
- Parrots and Pigeons: Can count and understand basic numerical concepts.
- Primates: Some can perform simple arithmetic tasks and understand quantities.
- Memory and Future Planning:
- Scrub Jays: Cache food and remember the locations, as well as when they hid it, showing an understanding of future needs.
- Elephants: Have remarkable long-term memory, particularly for social relationships and locations of water sources.
- Art and Aesthetic Appreciation:
- Bowerbirds: Build intricate and decorated structures to attract mates, showing a sense of aesthetics.
- Elephants and Great Apes: Some have been observed creating paintings, which may indicate a form of creative expression.
- Emotional Complexity:
- Dogs: Exhibit a range of emotions, including jealousy, guilt, and love.
- Rats: Show signs of regret and empathy, such as helping distressed conspecifics.
These examples highlight the remarkable cognitive and emotional capacities of various animal species, challenging the notion that such abilities are exclusive to humans.
The Egyptian fruit bat has been shown by researchers from Tel Aviv University, to be capable of episodic memory and forward planning. They have just published their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology and explained it in a Tel Aviv University (TAU) research news release:
Can Bats Think Ahead of Time?
TAU researchers discover that bats have episodic memory and plan ahead
Researchers at Tel Aviv University tracked free-ranging Egyptian fruit bats from a colony based in the TAU’s I. Meier Segals Garden for Zoological Research to answer a long-standing scientific question: Do animals have high and complex cognitive abilities, previously attributed only to humans? In particular, the study focused on the traits of episodic memory, mental time travel, planning ahead, and delayed gratification, arriving at highly thought-provoking conclusions.
The study was led by Prof. Yossi Yovel and Dr. Lee Harten from the School of Zoology and Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. Other researchers included: Xing Chen, Adi Rachum, Michal Handel, and Aya Goldstein from the School of Zoology, Lior de Marcas from the Sagol School of Neuroscience, and Maya Fenigstein Levi and Shira Rosencwaig from the National Public Health Laboratory of Israel's Ministry of Health. The paper was published in Current Biology.
For many years the cognitive abilities to recall personal experiences (episodic memory) and plan ahead were considered exclusive to humans. But more and more studies have suggested that various animals also possess such capabilities. Still, nearly all of these studies were conducted under laboratory conditions, since field studies on these issues are difficult to perform. Attempting to test these abilities in wild animals, we designed a unique experiment relying on the colony of free-ranging fruit bats based in TAU’s I. Meier Segals Garden for Zoological Research.
Professor Yossi Yovel, lead author
School of Zoology
Faculty of Life Sciences
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
How Bats Keep Track of Food Resources
The researchers assumed that bats depending on fruit trees for their survival would need to develop an ability to track the availability of food both spatially (where are the fruit trees?) and over time (when does each tree give fruit?). Navigating through landscapes with numerous fruit and nectar trees, they would need to mentally track the resources in order to revisit them at the appropriate time. To test this hypothesis, a tiny high-resolution GPS tracker was attached to each bat, enabling the documentation of flight routes and trees visited for many months. The vast data collected in this way were thoroughly analyzed, producing some amazing results.
The first research question was: Do bats form a time map in their minds? To explore this issue, the researchers prevented the bats from leaving the colony for varying periods of time, from one day to a week.
While the first research question looked at past experiences, the second dealt with the future: Do the bats exhibit future-oriented behaviors? Are they capable of planning ahead? To address this issue the researchers observed each bat's route to the first tree of the evening, possibly indicative of plans made before leaving the colony.
We wanted to see whether the bats could tell that time had elapsed and behave accordingly. We found that after one day of captivity, the bats would return to trees visited on the previous night. However, when a whole week had gone by, the older bats, based on past experience, avoided trees that had stopped bearing fruit in the interval. In other words: they were able to estimate how much time had passed since their last visit to each tree and knew which trees bore fruit for a short time and were no longer worth visiting. Young, inexperienced bats were unable to do this, indicating that this is an acquired skill that must be learned.
Dr Lee Harten, co-first author.
School of Zoology
Faculty of Life Sciences
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
We found that usually the bats fly directly to a specific tree they know, sometimes 20 or 30 minutes away. Being hungry, they fly faster when that tree is further away, suggesting they plan where they are heading. Moreover, focused on their chosen target, they will pass by other trees, even good sources visited just yesterday – indicating a capacity for delayed gratification. We also found that the first bats to leave the colony choose trees bearing fruits rich in sugar, while the bats that leave later seek proteins.
Chen Xing, co-first author
School of Zoology
Faculty of Life Sciences
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
All these findings suggest that the bats plan their foraging before they leave the colony, and know exactly where they are flying and what kind of nourishment they are looking for.
Rethinking Intelligence in Animals
The cognitive gap between humans and animals is one of the most fascinating issues in science. Our study demonstrates that fruit bats are capable of quite a complex decision-making process involving the three questions indicative of cognitive abilities: Where? (each tree's location); When? (when the tree bears fruit); and What? (the nourishment it provides – sugar vs. proteins). Once again we find that the gap is not cleat-cut, and that humans are not as unique as some might think. Apparently, humans and animals are all located on a spectrum, with almost any human ability found in animals as well.
Professor Yossi Yovel.
HighlightsAnd so another of creationism's 'uniquely human' 'proofs' of human special creation crashes and burns under the onslaught of science. No wonder creationists hate science so much that they spend so much time lying about it and attacking it. It's like a 3'6" midget claiming to be 6'3" and insisting that all the measuring devises are lying or defective because they always come out as 3'6" when measured.
- Fruit bats track tree phenology and estimate fruit availability since the last visit
- Young bats must learn tree phenology through experience
- Bats exhibit future-oriented behavior and fly to specific protein-rich trees
- When doing so, bats pass and skip over many familiar sugar-rich trees
Summary
Episodic memory and mental time travel have been viewed as uniquely human traits.1,2,3 This view began to shift with the development of behavioral criteria to assess what is referred to as “episodic-like memory” in animals.4,5 Key findings have ranged from evidence of what-where-when memory in scrub-jays, rats, and bees; through decision-making that impacts future foraging in frugivorous primates; to evidence of planning based on future needs in scrub-jays and tool use planning in great apes.4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 Field studies of these issues have been rare, though there is field-based evidence for future-oriented behaviors in primates.8,10,14,15 We report evidence that free-ranging wild fruit bats rely on mental temporal maps and exhibit future-oriented behaviors when foraging. We tracked young bats as they navigated and foraged, documenting every tree they visited over many months. We prevented the bats from foraging outside for different time periods and monitored their foraging decisions, revealing that the bats map the spatiotemporal patterns of resources in their environment. Following a long period in captivity, the bats did not visit those trees that were no longer providing fruit. We show that this time-mapping ability requires experience and is lacking in inexperienced bats. Careful analysis of the bats’ movement and foraging choices indicated that they plan which tree to visit while still in the colony, thus exhibiting future-oriented behavior and delayed gratification on a nightly basis. Our findings demonstrate how the need for spatiotemporal mental mapping can drive the evolution of high cognitive abilities that were previously considered exclusive to humans.Results and discussionGraphical abstract
In our study, we examined episodic-like memory and future-oriented behavior in wild free-foraging Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus). Bats, especially frugivorous species like the Egyptian fruit bat, represent an interesting model because their survival and reproductive success heavily depend on foraging decisions, which necessitate understanding and following temporal and spatial changes in food resources.16,17,18,19 Equipped with their cognitive spatial maps,20,21,22 these bats navigate through landscapes with numerous fruit and nectar trees, which they would need to mentally track in order to revisit over time.20,21,22
We thus hypothesized that these bats plan their foraging not only based on their knowledge of what and where food is available, but that they also rely on mental time-mapping to decide when to visit specific trees. Specifically, we predicted that (1) bats learn tree phenology and track the time passed since their last visit to a tree and that (2) on most nights, bats know where they are heading the moment they leave the colony. To test these hypotheses, we employed high-resolution GPS tracking and nutritional analysis, combined with experimental manipulations involving controlled periods in captivity, to uncover the underlying decision-making process.
Creationism isn't a problem for science; science is a problem for creationism.
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