Back when I was in college, I read a relatively minor (though still entertaining) novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, called "Oath of Fealty". The catchphrase of the book was "Think of it as evolution in action". This post from Doubtful News reminded me of that phrase: http://doubtfulnews.com/2012/12/catfish-attack-pigeons-on-land/ Oh, and make sure you watch the video posted in the article. Things like this actually happen all the time -- animals learning new behaviors, that is, doing things that they previously never were seen doing, or were thought incapable of previously (such as using tools, and so on). These bird-hunting catfish are interesting, but this is hardly the first or only story of its kind that I've read or heard of over the years. About 35+ years ago, I remember a trip to Florida with my parents. We visited this tourist spot/zoo near Miami called "The Monkey Jungle". It was a kind of zoo where the people were in cages, and the animals pretty much roamed free (to give you an idea of how free, neighboring farmers would complain about monkeys raiding their fields -- I don't think that this amount of freedom was intentional, but then again, they aren't a big-name/rich venue). Anyway, one thing that struck me was that while living there, a group of monkeys had learned a brand new behavior -- diving and swimming. You could purchase nuts and small pieces of fruit that you could throw to the monkeys to feed them. Well, the habitat for the monkeys included man-made ponds with waterfalls. And sometimes people would throw food and it would fall short and into the water. Well, these kinds of monkeys were always thought to be averse to water -- or at least had never before been seen swimming. At first they simply tried to fish the floating food out of the water, but eventually they took to actually diving off of the small hill overlooking the waterfall into the pond, in order to reach the food that had fallen to the bottom. Anyway I think this sort of stuff is fascinating. It may not be so surprising when it happens with monkeys (or dogs, or crows) -- we all know that some animals are smarter than others. But one hardly thinks of catfish as being geniuses of the animal kingdom.
The Dolphin use of sponges is definitely cool as well. There's a lot of stuff like this -- crows bending a piece of wire into a hook to get a piece of food out of a bottle, monkeys doing similar things with sticks to grab termite larvae from a nest, and so on. One image that really stuck with me was when I was in California -- watching the sea otters. They'd float on their back with a large flat stone on their stomach, and they'd use it to open up clams and muscles. They may not manufacture the rock, but it's still fascinating to watch. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the statement that what separates animals from humans is that only we can use tools. Well obviously we're not quite so different after all. I know that squirrels also have been known to be quite clever -- I'm not sure what their record is with tools, but they certainly have been filmed accessing so-called squirrel-proof bird feeders. And then there was this absolutely awesome story I read a while back -- I can't recall exactly where I read it, and I've been trying to find the source, and haven't been successful. If you recognize the story, maybe you can remind me. I'd love to verify if its true or not. Anyway, the story goes that a family kept a large dog in their back yard, on a leash in a dog house. The dog owner observed during the fall, this crow would sometimes try to walk up to the dog, who would bark and the crow would fly to just past the length of the chain. Eventually the dog started tolerating the crow more, and the crow eventually would get more adventurous. He'd actually walk up to the dog and peck at it a bit and the dog would get annoyed, but the crow would always leap out of reach. Well over the course of the fall and into the winter, the dog became more tolerant of the crow. One freezing cold day, the dog owner went out to check on the dog. The crow was in the doghouse sleeping with the dog, sharing the dogs body heat. Apparently (or at least this was the interpretation of the dog owner) the Crow had trained the dog to tolerate it so that it could share the doghouse and survive the winter. I don't know if its true, but it's a great story.
Now if only we could happen across one of these creatures changing so much that they become unable to crossbreed with their peers, we'll be in business.
Behavioral changes aren't genetic, so they can't be inherited. Thus, unlikely to result in the changes you desire...
I have seen many examples of simple tool use from common animals. My cats of the past learned to turn on the water so they could drink from the sink. This was evident and problematic as the cat had no inclination to turn it off when he was done. We eventually gave up and replaced the mechanism with one that reset over several seconds. He picked up how to use it in less than a minute. Most people think that animals are dumber than Humans, but other than a limited vocabulary and limited ability to speak anything we can understand, I have seen animals that were quite smart even compared to Humans. Note that lack of desire does not equal lack of ability. Why innovate if everything you want is already handed to you on a silver platter? Science tells me that any cat would try to kill any bird for food even if it was not hungry. That is instinctual for them. But in reality the same cat I had that learned to turn on the water also decided to open a birdcage and crawl inside and proceed to lay down and have a nap. He had zero interest in the birds. But the cage was comfortable to him in a way only a cat could appreciate.
There are SO many stories about intelligence in crows and ravens, including social behaviors, stories about them holding grudges against, or befriending specific human beings (and apparently, they can distinguish between individual humans by their faces). Here's two different stories -- the first one is about a crow that was rescued by a family and apparently befriended it: http://doubtfulnews.com/2012/09/rescued-wild-animals-that-became-best-friends/ Also, this TED talk concerns crows as well -- it's long but I do recommend watching the whole thing:
