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Do bowerbirds exhibit cultures?

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Abstract

Definitions of what features constitute cultural behaviour, and hence define cultures are numerous. Many seem designed to describe those aspects of human behaviour which set us apart from other animals. A broad definition prescribing that the behaviour is: learned; learned socially; normative and collective is considered to apply to several species of great ape. In this paper, I review observations and experiments covering a suite of different behavioural characteristics displayed in members of the bowerbird family (Ptilonorhynchidae) and ask whether they fulfil these criteria. These include vocalisations, bower design, decoration use, bower orientation and display movements. Such a range of behaviours refutes the suggestion that these species are “one-trick ponies”—a criticism that is often levelled at claims for culture in non-primate species. I suggest that, despite a paucity of data in comparison with primate studies, it could be argued that bowerbirds may be considered to fulfil the same criteria on which we base our use of the term culture when applied to our close relatives, the great apes. If bowerbirds do have cultures, then their unusual natural history makes them a highly tractable system in which questions of social learning and culture can be tackled.

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Acknowledgments

This work was inspired by a talk given by W McGrew and developed during a Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology workshop on culture. I thank the participants at that meeting for stimulating discussion. I am very grateful to R Coe, L Day and J Endler for providing personal observations, anecdotes and unpublished data, and to T Robson and A Goldizen for providing me with a copy of P Maxwell’s honours thesis.

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  1. Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK

    Joah R. Madden

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Correspondence to Joah R. Madden.

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Madden, J.R. Do bowerbirds exhibit cultures?. Anim Cogn 11, 1–12 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-007-0092-5

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