We the people evil animalsthere is no doubt about it. Some more, some less, but each of us at some point felt offended by someone. So, are we the only species capable of harboring this feeling?
We might think that it is too difficult for other animals to sense it, but the reality is that there are several species that have, one way or another, proven to be able to sense it. feel offended. To do this, it is first necessary that they can remember other individuals of the same or another species. We cannot feel resentment towards someone if we do not remember it. Many animals seem to be capable of this, but not all of them are vicious animals.
Some of them, or at least, exhibit behavior very similar to that of a person full of resentment. ants, crows and elephants.
Ants never forget
They seem innocent, so small and hardworking, constantly sneaking under our feet, but in fact ants are animals. ruthless They organize into armies to fight enemy colonies, start real wars, take slaves from the losing side, execute enemies they see fit… It’s as exciting as it is scary. If they were two meters tall, they would have already conquered the world.
But that’s not all. It has been proven that ants are also capable recognize other ants that at some point they were aggressive towards them and, if they meet them again, they will reveal their own aggressiveness.
This was demonstrated in a recent study by a group of scientists from University of Freiburg. From previous research they knew that ants have the ability recognize the smell mates of the same nest and, therefore, distinguish between those that belong to other nests and may be potential enemies. Now that they admit it, how will they behave? Can you remember your meetings?
To make sure of this, they took a group black garden ants and exposed them different scenarios. Over the course of five days, they could meet other ants from the same nest or from other nests, one close to theirs, another further away. Encounters with ants from other nests became increasingly aggressive. Behaviors such as biting, throwing acid, or opening jaws as a sign of threat continued to increase. After this, they focused on only one of the competing nests. When the ants encountered them, the level of aggression depended on previous experience. If at previous exhibitions they encountered ants from this nest, they were very aggressive. On the other hand, if these meetings did not take place, then, at most, they were suspicious.
This indicates that they were not only able to recognize the ants from another nest. They also remembered whether they had problems with them, and if so, attacked them. These are, without a doubt, vicious animals.
Crows, vicious animals par excellence
The case of the crows is perhaps one of the most interesting. They are extremely intelligent birds, capable of making and using tools, congregating around a corpse to determine the cause of death, or even imitating human sounds. So it’s not surprising that they can recognize human faces.
However, what is very amazing is that they not only recognize them, but also remember whether the person accompanying that person played a joke on them. This was already intuitive, but it was demonstrated in 2020 by a group of scientists from University of Vienna.
One of these scientists walked for four years with a dead crow in his hand and a mask on his face near an area inhabited by crows. After that, he again regularly walked around the neighborhood, sometimes wearing a mask, sometimes without it. So, he saw that when he was wearing it, the crows began to attack him, because they considered him a threat and held a grudge against him for what he had done to his companion.
On the other hand, in cities with large crow populations such as Vancouver, There are even Facebook groups in Canada where women with similar hair appearance or eye color complain about persistent attacks from these vicious animals. Okay, maybe they aren’t very good at telling people apart, but the point is that they hold a lot of grudges.
Emotional elephants
Elephants are very emotional animals, both good and bad. They bury and perform funerary rites with their dead young, attack when they feel threatened, and are also able to recognize people. At least it seems like they can distinguish voices.
In a study published in 2014 by scientists from University of Sussex, It was clear that they distinguished, for example, the voices of adults, children, men and women. They also differentiate accents. It was observed that of all the voices that the elephants heard in the experiment, they were most afraid of the voices of adult Maasai men. They tended to run away from them. If this was the only case, perhaps they could not be considered evil animals. However, we have already seen that in order to feel resentment, you must first remember. And yes, elephants can also be very aggressive when they feel threatened. If they don’t have the ability to escape, as in the experiment, they will attack. There were cases of attacks on people with whom they already had problems, so they also included in this list.
No, cats are not vicious animals: at least not by much.
Perhaps when you talk about vicious animals, you think of cats. Those who have had these pets know the accusatory look they sometimes give to their human friends when they are left alone for a long time or are punished for breaking the sofa. However, experts generally agree that the suspicious and somewhat aggressive behavior they may exhibit in these cases is more of a stress response than a resentment. They don’t hold grudges and attack because they remember what was done to them, but rather get nervous and defend themselves so they don’t have a bad time again. In the end, they will have a softer heart than we thought. Softer than many people, for sure.
Source: Hiper Textual
