I was watching this video recently (https://youtu.be/XAd1DlE7eaU) and in the first few minutes, he mentions something about the robin rotating the eggs under it so the heat distributes evenly. This make me really think.
How do these animals understand the incubation process? How can it understand something complex like knowing how often to rotate the eggs, or even comprehend it needs to rotate them in the first place? Does this suggest that knowledge is passed down through genetics?
In: Biology
Instinct is actually not a useful term in animal behaviour. It’s a catch all for any behaviour that doesn’t appear to be learned. Animals behaviour can develop and change over time based on their species typical experiences. Their predisposition to do that is, of course, genetically determined.
In the case of incubating eggs, this is a behaviour that has evolved for the same reasons anything does: because it increases the likelihood that genes will be passed on. Clearly that can’t happen if your eggs are not incubated!
What’s funny about this behaviour and many others is just how simple the underlying ‘urge’ is. The animal is not ‘thinking’ I better incubate my eggs to pass on my genes. They’re responding to their environment. Ethologists have shown that seagulls respond to the speckled pattern of their eggs with brooding behaviour. They painted bricks white with brown speckles and the seagulls sat on them for hours a day!
Why did this seemingly wasteful behaviour evolve? Because on balance sitting on an empty egg, or even a brick! Was a more successful strategy than more complex algorithms. Plus there weren’t any pesky naturalists replacing their eggs with bricks until quite recently!!
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