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> to ours. Of course, I'd also suggest that /many/ animals have a
> `culture:' ants (hives), dogs (packs), in essence, any animal that has
> to issue cooperative behaviour at some point (and since they /all/
> have to mate, eventually) will have some level of `culture' that can
> be perceived, and memes underlying that.
There is some evidence of animal memetic behavior : some chimp groups
can catch termites with a stick while others can't. The ones who can,
"teach" it to their young.
In Japan, a group of squirrels "learned" to wash their nuts (no jokes
please) after a single squirrel started this practice and "taught" it
to the others.
On an unrelated subject : I read in Nation Geographic of a spider which
can "experiment" with vibrations until it gets the right frequency to
lure and catch other spiders. It then "remembers" that frequency for
when it encounters spiders of the same species. Sometimes it has to
get a frequency to attract a small male (to eat) while not alerting
the bigger vicious female. The Geographic writer wondered if this
behavior transcended the bounds of "instinct".
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Hakeeb A. Nandalal
nanco@trinidad.net
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