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Animals That Know How To Deal With Humans; Wild Animals behaviourally adapted to humans
Topic Started: Apr 24 2017, 02:47 AM (748 Views)
Cape Leopard
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Heterotrophic Organism
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I think that many wild animals show evolutionary adaptation to humans.

What came to mind for me were leopards and giraffes. I read an account once of a San bushman struggling to hunt a giraffe with a bow and arrow, as the giraffe had used the vegetation to its advantage, using a tree as a shield from the human hunting it.

Then there are the accounts here of the stark difference between cougars and leopards when hunted by people: cougars can be safely approached when treed by dogs, while in contrast the leopard cannot be approached because it correctly identifies the human(s) as the actual threat, not the dogs, and will attempt to directly attack the human(s).

It goes to show how large megafauna like these have evolved alongside humans in Africa for so long that they can instinctually react in a way to us that will maximise their chance of survival. Sadly firearms are such a novel method that African megafauna cannot evolve fast enough to adapt and thus are being steadily wiped out.

What other species - wild, not domesticated - do you know of that can 'read' us?

I think coyotes have adapted very well to the new anthropogenic environmental conditions and habitats, but I am unsure whether they can read/understand humans in a similar way that an African animal can.
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Palaeoscincus
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Mosquitoes. They gain immunity to pesticides and will change their feeding times to avoid bed nets.
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Spartan
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At least for Africa it has been called into question that coevolution was the reason that much of the megafauna there survived the Quaternary extinction event:

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Africa remains an anomaly. Perhaps coevolution between humans and their prey did give megafauna an advantage (Martin 1984). Yet many African animals do not use cryptic habitats, and many lack defensive behaviors that would deter armed, group- hunting humans. If we accept that similarly armed and technologically sophisticated humans precipitated an extinction of most large mammals elsewhere around the globe, the lack of extinction in Africa is troubling. We offer three speculations on this issue.

Late Quaternary Extinctions: State of the Debate, Paul L. Koch and Anthony D. Barnosky, 2006

Some animals seem to have become poisonous to people, but even then humans have learned quickly to circumvent this defense.

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A general limitation of toxicity in animals is that the poisons tend to be concentrated or sequestered in particular parts of the body. Skin (or exoskeleton) and the liver are particularly prone to be toxic, and therefore can be removed by knowledgeable human consumers.


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Where adaptation has been demonstrated or inferred, it is either behavioral, as manifested by increased fear, vigilance (Darwin 1859), or demographic, as reflected in trends toward smaller adult size, earlier maturation, and a faster life cy- cle (Conover and Munch 2002; Olsen et al. 2004; Birkeland and Dayton 2005; Conover et al. 2005; Hutchings and Baum 2005; Kuparinen and Meril ̈ a 2007; Fenberg and Roy 2008; Darimont et al. 2009). Under this new regime, which Allendorf and Hard (2009) call “unnatural selection,” many traits that contributed to effective adaptation against nonhuman enemies have lost their usefulness or even become liabilities. In other words, characteristics such as large adult size, a well-armored shell in molluscs, elaborate antlers or horns in large herbivorous mammals, and large meaty claws in crabs and lobsters were effective in defense, competition, and mate choice before humans appeared on the scene; but these traits attracted humans and therefore became disadvan- tageous under the new human-dominated selective regime.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01592.x/abstract

Your best bet would probably be things like rats or mosquitoes as Palaeoscincus said, but I don't think there is any megafauna who knows "how to deal with humans".

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M4A2E4
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Not proven, but there's some anecdotal evidence that rattlesnakes that don't use their rattles when approached by people are starting to become a thing
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SquamataOrthoptera
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15 year old keyboard warrior!
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M4A2E4
Apr 24 2017, 04:48 AM
Not proven, but there's some anecdotal evidence that rattlesnakes that don't use their rattles when approached by people are starting to become a thing
I have also heard of this. iirc Rattlesnakes without rattles are starting to becaume more common.
Edited by SquamataOrthoptera, Apr 24 2017, 04:54 AM.
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Grazier
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Lots of hunters in Australia say the feral dog is the most challenging animal to hunt. The sambar deer is notorious the world over for how difficult it is to hunt due to incredible awareness and heightened senses, but hunters here say they are second to feral dogs. I find it fascinating that even when dogs are no longer our friends they "remember" our habits and can still read us and use this knowledge and understanding of their ex-partner to stay a step ahead of them in these strategic wilderness battles.
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Ceratodromeus
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Something similar can be seen with elephant tusks, if i remember correctly.
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Cape Leopard
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The above examples of animals losing certain anatomical features and becoming immune to pesticides is more a product of human predation pressure. I was talking more about actual behavioural adaptations.
Edited by Cape Leopard, Apr 25 2017, 12:28 AM.
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Ceratodromeus
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Aren't most urban animals example of that? Pigeons and brown rats come to mind
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thegrackle
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M4A2E4
Apr 24 2017, 04:48 AM
Not proven, but there's some anecdotal evidence that rattlesnakes that don't use their rattles when approached by people are starting to become a thing
Here in Texas we have what they call rattlesnake round-ups. For a reason unknown to me, some people go out and catch as many rattlesnakes that they can find (maybe they feel threatened, I don't know). Obviously the easiest way to find the snakes is detecting the rattle. The snakes that are less inclined to use their rattle don't get caught. They go on to breed and their offspring are then less likely to rattle. I don't think that they know how to deal with humans, as much as humans have caused silent rattlers to propagate.
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Mesopredator
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Biosemiotics might be of interest here. I read read it.
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