Why do animals understand they need to incubate eggs?

Question

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

Answer 1

The thing about instinct is scientifically, it doesn’t really mean a whole lot. It basically boils down to we don’t know why. Like “instinct” better translates into reflexes, but they’re not quite the same thing.

Like we don’t have an innate knowledge to eat, we get hunger reflexes which hurt and are uncomfortable, pushing us to eat. Animals don’t just know what to eat and how to act, they are taught by their parents as a baby (with a couple of exceptions which we really don’t understand and are so far removed from us, we probably never will). Animals who are separated from birth need to be taught what to eat, and are typically very socially awkward within their species (ie in domestic cats, not knowing how to play or properly greet and communicate needs). Like there are biological responses (reflexes) involved in these things, like socializing gives you dopamine making you wanting to socialise more, but these are observable biological responses, not some force or knowledge that you’re born with.

I’m remember reading something about a flock of birds (can’t remember which ones) and most of the older birds died in a mass die off(that I can’t remember the context of) and because the younger ones weren’t yet taught how navigate the migration route, it was lost. It wasn’t instinctual, it was thousands and thousands of generations of teaching to retain the same migration route.

As with rotating eggs, there could be a reflex involved, or it could be a choice knowing that an egg always needs to be warm to hatch and just feeling the difference in temperature across the surface, or it’s something that chicks are taught before they leave the nest making it a cultural behavior, or a combination of these things.