The relationship between flight initiation distance and cognition of urban-living yellow mongooses, Cynictis penicillata

What is it about?

This paper focussed on the relationship between flight initiation and cognition in urban yellow mongooses. Flight initiation distance (FID) is the distance between an approaching human observer and an animal subject at the exact time that the animal flees. We provided yellow mongooses with a puzzle box problem that had to be solved in order to obtain food. This was done in the presence of a human observer, allowing us to record the FID of mongooses at the puzzle box. After the mongoose fled from the box, the observer retreated, allowing the mongoose to return to the box and obtain the food incentive. From this experiment we were able to conclude that yellow mongooses that live in closer proximity to humans have shorter FIDs than those further away. Additionally, mongooses exposed to increased human contact fled further away from the box and took a longer time to recover than those with reduced human contact. These results showed that mongooses in areas of increased human contact were more fearful of humans than those with less human contact. Despite these differences, all mongooses were equally efficient at problem-solving. However, the mongooses that were more tolerant of humans became better problem-solvers over time. We conclude that urban animals’ ability to adjust to human disturbance may benefit their cognitive abilities.

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Photo by Birger Strahl on Unsplash

Photo by Birger Strahl on Unsplash