Do common ravens use objects to mediate social interactions?

Description

Social play has been shown to facilitate the formation and development of social relationships between individuals. Social play may also involve objects. Most research on object play behavior suggests that it is explorative in nature and adaptive in gaining foraging skills. However, not much is known about how individuals may use objects to initiate social interactions with others. Captive ravens have been shown to engage in interactions over cached objects, thereby learning about others’ behaviors. In this study, we test the hypothesis that ravens may engage in object play to attract the attention of and initiate interactions with other ravens. To examine our hypothesis, we collected ~300 focal observations between October 2021 – December 2023 on the object-handling behavior in a group of non-breeder ravens in free-flight in the Northern Alps of Austria. Our preliminary analysis shows a trend that object-handling behavior elicits approaches from other ravens and, indeed, may lead to social interactions. However, the exact social context seems to differ between the age-classes. The potential implications of these results and further steps in the analysis will be discussed.

Period	23 Apr 2024
Event title	ASAB Spring 2024
Event type	Conference
Location	Exeter, United KingdomShow on map