African Wild Dogs Exercise "Voting Rights" by Sneezing Ideographs

An international research team has found that African wild dogs exercise a “vote” by sneezing to determine whether the pack will hunt.

The endangered animal takes a break from hunting and then gathers for a “social gathering” to “negotiate” whether or not to launch a new hunt collectively.

The researchers observed and analyzed 68 “social gatherings” of five groups of African wild dogs in Botswana’s Okavango Delta and found that “sneezing plays a role in voting, and the more sneezes, the more likely the dogs are to set out on a hunt. Zoologists previously thought that African wild dogs sneezed only to clear their airways.

The researchers also found that when the lead pair of male and female wild dogs participated in the rally, it didn’t take many sneezes from the other dogs for the pack to decide to set out; if the lead pair didn’t participate, “it took a few more sneezes, about 10.”

Andrew King, a researcher at Swansea University in the United Kingdom who participated in the study, says that African wild dogs make their hunting decisions by the number of times they sneeze, a behavior similar to a human pack that holds a vote before taking an action, with a quorum required to act.

Other herd animals, such as meerkats, also behave similarly, but the “quorum” required for African wild dogs to take action is determined by what dogs participate in the “vote,” and not all dogs have the same “vote. “Weighting.

The study was published in the Journal of the Biology Section of the Royal Society. (Ossa) [Xinhua News Agency Micro Special].