Post on 13-Apr-2017
Can animals be truly selfless?
Altruism
What is altruism?
“altruism refers to behaviour by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor.”
Vampire Bats
Females share blood with one another
Warning Calls
Alerts others to predators but also to themselves
Eusociality in bees
Why is being selfless weird?
What is the goal of survival?To pass on your genes?
Or to continue your species?
Food sharing
Reciprocal Altruism
Alarm Calls
Why?
Kin Selection
Protects those that are related to you
Great tits
Fake calls to scare larger birds from the food
Topis
Fake calls for mating
White Tail Deer
Nope! It tells the predator that it’s been spotted
Eusociality has to be altruistic!
Not Necessarily…
It might be forced equality
Where rebellers or selfish bees are punished/killed
So…What does it mean to be selfless?
END
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
Bell, Graham (2008). Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 367–368. ISBN 0-19-856972-6.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151117-vampire-bats-blood-food-science-animals/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347208003400
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1533/3169#sec-8