Kindness in an Unkindness of Ravens
Common Raven, Corvus corax, showing off at Bryce Canyon National Park, USA. Image: United States National Park Service (Public Domain)
You’d think that ravens—looking all black and bedraggled as they do, and croaking their gruff baritone croaks as they do—would be sort of, well, evil. Or at least brutally indifferent to others’ suffering. And they are! But, in a beyond-good-and-evil kind of way, they are also surprisingly sympathetic to other ravens with whom they have formed social bonds.
A new study of the Common Raven, Corvus corax, examines what are called “affiliative behaviors”—various forms of touching and preening—among ravens in the minutes after one of them has been in a fight. Researchers placed 11 ravens (raised in captivity) from four nests in a large outdoor aviary outfitted to be as natural for the birds as possible. GrrlScientist recounts:
Drs. Fraser and Bugnyar began their study by documenting the frequency of affiliative behaviors in these birds, using a standard protocol developed for primate research. They watched the aftermath of 152 fights between these juvenile ravens during the following 23-month period of time, and recorded the identities of the aggressor, the victim and the bystanders (nearby flock members), along with the intensity of the conflict (a chase flight or hitting were rated as “high intensity”, whilst a forced retreat was “low intensity”). All affiliative (“consoling”) behaviors — defined as contact sitting, preening or beak-to-beak or beak-to-body touching between the victim of the conflict and an individual flock member — were recorded during the ten minutes following each conflict. These post-conflict time periods (PC) were then matched to a control period (MC) for the same victim raven on the next possible day and the frequency and nature of the affiliative interactions that occurred in those time periods were compared….
The ravens were two to three times more likely to exhibit affiliative behaviors immediately following a conflict (the PC period) than at other, controlled times not immediately following a conflict (the MC period). And they favored those ravens they were closer to. GrrlScientist:
Basically, affiliative behaviors occurred most often when the flock member had a closer social bond with the victim raven than with the aggressor. Furthermore, the team observed an increasing probability of unsolicited bystander affiliations after more intense conflicts (when the victim was more likely to be distressed)….
“The findings of this study represent an important step towards understanding how ravens manage their social relationships and balance the costs of group-living,” Drs. Fraser and Bugnyar write. “Furthermore, they suggest that ravens may be responsive to the emotional needs of others.”
The function of the post-conflict affiliative behavior is, one must admit, not perfectly clear. But a leading hypothesis (developed in studies of chimps) contends that its function is to console: to alleviate the victim’s distress, and to do so out of empathy.
If that hypothesis is correct, it will give the lie to the (not-exactly-common) English word for an aggregation of Corvus corax, “an unkindness of ravens.” It seems these corvids just don’t want to live according to our labels.
Via GrrlScientist.
Source:
Fraser, O., & Bugnyar, T. (2010). Do Ravens Show Consolation? Responses to Distressed Others. PLoS ONE, 5 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010605
Comments
One Response to “Kindness in an Unkindness of Ravens”
Leave a Reply
About Me
- I write this blog.
-
My twitter feed:
[...] off at Bryce Canyon National Park, USA. Image: United States National Park Service (Public Domain) via Kindness in an Unkindness of Ravens LD_AddCustomAttr("AdOpt", "1"); LD_AddCustomAttr("Origin", "other"); [...]