Discovery that kangaroos can communicate with humans in a polite way is rather exciting – Scotsman comment
Anyone who has ever owned a dog or a cat, in particular, will know just how well we can communicate with – if not quite talk to like Dr Doolittle – the animals. They appear to understand quite a few human words, they most certainly react to our tone of voice, and they can convey a range of emotions, including happiness, sadness, annoyance, embarrassment and guilt.
But now researchers have discovered that wild kangaroos are able to ask us an important question in a way that we can understand.
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Hide AdA study found that kangaroos at three separate locations in Australia would gaze at a human in an attempt to persuade them to open a box that they knew contained food, rather than trying to open it themselves.
This might initially sound odd – the animals could have simply been looking at the human – but we all understand this kind of ‘knowing gaze’ when we encounter it.
Scientists had thought that such communication skills might be related to the domestication process, but the fact that wild animals are able to do it suggests we share closer bonds with other species than some may have previously believed.
Wild animals can become aggressive when they want food or just swoop in to snatch it, but the kangaroos in these studies appear to have adopted an appealingly polite manner.
The existence of a cross-species ‘language’ – even if limited to a non-verbal version of “would you please give me some of your food” – is, as the scientists said, a rather exciting discovery.
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