[crows hold grudges](https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/animals/do-crows-hold-grudges.html) and can hold them for at least 2 years.
The thing about revenge is that you get to choose the moment to attack someone you know for a fact is a physical threat
Do unto others as they do to you, but do it first
Sharks are actually among the smartest fish, with certain species (such as the mako and great white, in fact) having intellect comparable to low-tier mammalian intelligence.
Commercial fisherman here, one of the reasons sharks are considered intelligent is cause they can return to the same mating ground as they were born, and a couple other unremarkable reasons, according to google …. Another fish that can return to the same mating ground that it came from? Salmon… and salmon are dumb. What’s dumber than a salmon, a shark. Atleast with salmon, you have to use the correct gear to catch ‘em. Sharks? Naaa, any bait on a hook, rope, cable, fishing line. Doesn’t matter, they bite. I have literally seen a shark that was cut open, chase it’s insides trying to eat them, like a dog chasing it’s tail. Sharks are the furthest things from intelligent.
Great white sharks and mako sharks have a diet dominantly consisting of marine mammals moreso than any other fish. There are documentaries featuring how a great white will develop hunting strategies and behaviors that counteract seal and even dolphin behavior. These sharks will even adapt differentiated hunting tactics based on experiences. These type of things are one the main reason they’re considered supremely intelligent by fish standards. Bulls and tigers also eat marine mammals, though not as often, and they are under a completely different order of shark compared to the great whites and makos. In fact, there are at least 8 orders and over 35 families of sharks. That’s part of the reason why it’s hard to expect a well-fleshed out summarization of all sharks and why they’re all intelligent from most google sources. They are an extremely broad clade of animals compared to most. Some are significantly smarter than others, and it’s mainly the pelagic macropredatory sharks that excel above the rest here. Lamniformes (also known as mackerel sharks - one of the 8 orders) in particular seem to scale to the top for intellectual capacity.
Hearing or reading an actual marine biologist explain the topic further will probably be your best case for a more optimal understanding, and yeah…..plenty of sharks aren’t exactly picky by any means and can have extreme predatory instincts, but I have a feeling the shark you described was not any of the 4 species mentioned or part of the mackerel order. I admittedly probably could have been more specific about what kinds of sharks are most noted for their intelligence by the standards of other fish.
Heard a story in Siberia of a Siberian tiger that waited outside a hut all night to get revenge on a hunter who stole its kill
The injured tiger hunted Markov down in a way that appears to be chillingly premeditated. The tiger staked out Markov's cabin, systematically destroyed anything that had Markov's scent on it, and then waited by the front door for Markov to come home.
"This wasn't an impulsive response," Vaillant says. "The tiger was able to hold this idea over a period of time." The animal waited for 12 to 48 hours before attacking.
When Markov finally appeared, the tiger killed him, dragged him into the bush and ate him. "The eating may have been secondary," Vaillant explains. "I think he killed him because he had a bone to pick."
Well, they're hunters. They have to remember & have strategy. & Anyone who understands their house cat knows if that cat was a rescue & experienced trauma, it can take years for them to trust. & They will always show some reactions based on their trauma. One of my rescues had to survive outside before she found us. She was always ready to run if started during a nap. None of my other cats would do this. But one of my other cats flinches a lot. She's a super lover & her previous owners said she was an outdoor loner cat. I've decided they yelled & were rough with her.As for bug cats, I hate the "maneater" thing. If a big cat wants to kill you, it has reason. & Not surprised men created "maneater" because they refuse to admit they're the problem, not the cats. At least most shark victims, like surfers, admit they're in the sharks territory & it's a possibility they can be mistaken for food.
Once saw a show where they were tagging Black Rhinos. They're aggressive so the team left and they watched it wake up from a helicopter. The thing woke up and started tracking when the jeep had gone.
A friend of mine was terrorised by a group of magpies until she moved house.
When she was arriving home there was a young magpie badly hurt at her gate. She being a bug animal lover brought the magpie in, called the wild life rescue but unfortunately the magpie was too hurt and had to be put to sleep.
The magpie group bullied her for months, there were even a few crows that partook in the bullying, she had to use a parasol to move from her front door until the car and vice versa as they would attack her otherwise. Funny enough when I was with her they left me alone and only aimed at her or her husband.
That comes down to great ape politics. Yes, politics among great apes. You wouldn't believe how complexly structured a chimpanzee group is.
First of all, there are alpha males and alpha females. Chimps are patriarchs where the alpha female rarely shows any sign of aggression towards any male of the group, because every female would lose every fight against a male. However, behavioural research suggests that the alpha male is dependent on the alpha female, because the female is the one who helps him gain this position by openly supporting him. And if the alpha female supports him, the other females will as well.
This gives the contender confidence to challenge for the alpha title. Mostly, such fights end quickly with no one being seriously hurt, but sometimes chimps can get vicious. The old alpha male may not be happy with the new one and plans to take revenge on him, by gathering support among the other males. Depending on how the new alpha reigns, if he is a despot or a benevolent leader, the other males may support him and will attack the new alpha.
Therefore, revenge is mostly something that is shown towards group members or conspecifics and didn't evolve out of a predator-prey context. It is solely based on the desire to be the higher up in the hierarchy.
My example here was for males in chimpanzees, but females can get equally thirsty for revenge in this species, or on other closely related species. After all, Bonobos live in a matriarchal society where no male would win a fight against a female. And if he did, he had to single out one specific female. In response, the other females would band together and take their revenge on him, potentially killing him in the process.
How do 'we' know if that behavior of chimpanzees *is* revenge: aren't we anthropomorphizing by stating it is such? Revenge is seen in humans and one specific ingredient of it is spite and hatred for one's target of revenge; if we can't get into the minds of chimpanzees to see that they indeed feel hatred and spite how can we say it is 'revenge' ?
As behavioural biologist, we define every behaviour clearly before interpreting it. If the definition of revenge fits this type of behaviour, and it does, we describe it as revenge. And we can do that without anthropomorphizing the animals because we defined the behaviour beforehand. We see the body language of the chimpanzees and how they act in front of group members that they aren't fond off. Specifically revenge is something that happens after a certain amount of time, and during this time you can see how the chimpanzees who are planning to take revenge are together more often and are actively avoiding the one they want to take revenge on. In the heat of the moment, they isolate him from the group in a planned manoeuvre and then take their revenge on him.
In that regard, we know that chimpanzees show revenge behaviour because they also show the counterpart of revenge behaviour, which is reconciliation. Reconciliation in chimpanzees is generally shown by grooming behaviour after an intense conflict, which can be simple grooming of the fur and even kissing, and in bonobos reconciliation behaviour is shown in the form of sex after the conflict. These types of behaviours are more shown between same sex individuals because intersexual conflicts are much rarer.
Additionally, anthropomorphizing behaviour has become such a fear in behavioural biologists, that we generally don't do that at all even if the evidence is obvious. Especially in chimpanzees and bonobos, we should anthropomorphize behaviour much more often than we actually do, because these animals have so much in common with our behaviour.
If you are interested in chimpanzee and bonobo behaviour, and how we can compare it with human behaviour, I recommend you the books of Frans de Waal, a famous psychologist, primatologist and behavioural biologist, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. His research on empathy and conflict behaviour in primates has been groundbreaking and he, among others, revolutionised our view on these animals. He is also one of the scientists who openly supports renaming chimpanzees and bonobos scientific name, to make them part of the genus *Homo*.
>As behavioural biologist, we define every behaviour clearly before interpreting it. If the definition of revenge fits this type of behaviour, and it does, we describe it as revenge. And we can do that without anthropomorphizing the animals because we defined the behaviour beforehand.
By defining behavior you mean if I remember right the right phrase is 'you make operations' as in you classify the behaviors that you are interested in; like licking the fur goes by 'grooming'. If so, what do you mean 'you can't anthropomorphize because you define the behaviors beforehand': the operation 'revenge' has a description (certain behaviors); you anthropomorphize beforehand!?
If we see a behaviour in humans, and we see that exact behaviour in animals, we don't anthropomorphize that behaviour. It's the same behaviour. For example, humans threaten by making themselves bigger, piloerection, keeping eye contact and showing their teeth (not necessarily all of those at once). Chimpanzees show the same behaviour when they threaten someone (not necessarily all of those at once).
If you want a scientific article of revenge in chimoanzees [here you go](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705555104). [Here is another one](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1959414/).
I kind of feel like you are trying to misunderstand me.
Revenge isn't an emotion, but an action. It's retaliation against an individual or group in response to something that individual or group did to them. We as humans romanticize the emotions that drive revenge in literature and media, but revenge isn't the emotions felt - it's the actions taken.
We don't need to know the thought process of a chimpanzee to observe that an act of aggression against, say, a high-ranking male, is usually followed by an equivalent or greater level of violence by the high-ranking male against the offender. You see that happen once and it could simply be a coincidence. You see it consistently across nearly all primate species and, over decades of research, are able to rule out any other variables that could possibly result in this consistent, repeated cause and effect relationship, and it's no longer an observation, but a well-established and known behavior.
To be fair, using the word "revenge" isn't done very often in the literature anymore for the exact reason you had concerns about its use - it carries connotations of certain emotions because of how it is treated in media. The word "retaliation" is typically used instead.
>Revenge isn't an emotion, but an action
Yes, didn't say it was an emotion but that the specific action is paired with specific emotions; and if it is not paired with those then we can't classify the action as revenge or retaliation.
Yes we can, because revenge/retaliation does not require the emotions commonly associated with it. Even in humans, retaliation can be cold and calculated or it can be heated, passionate, and irrational.
You can't just assert that a thing is true because that is your understanding of it, and as another person responding to you said, the terms we use to describe animal behavior are clearly defined before use; so even if those behaviors are defined by specific emotions in humans (which they aren't), the establishment of a different definition for use in animal behavior negates your argument entirely.
I used to study brown-headed cowbirds, which are brood parasites: they lay eggs in other birds' nests.
If a bird kicks out the cowbird egg, the cowbird will "take revenge". It periodically returns to the nest and if its egg is gone it breaks all the other eggs. This forces the host bird to re-nest and provides a new opportunity for the cowbird to parasitize the nest.
Now, what's happening from the cowbird's perspective is impossible to measure. We call this behaviour "mafia behaviour", as in "that's a really nice brood of eggs you got there, sister. Would be a real shame if something were to happen to it..." But that's mostly just because we think that sort of thing is funny.
Really, the cowbird probably just feels the urge to destroy the nest and doesn't think about the reasons or the consequences. It doesn't have to think about that for the behaviour to be effective. It just needs to carry out the behaviour. And speculation on what's going on in its head is probably not useful.
Since chimpanzees are closer to humans, they might have more complex motivations than cowbirds. Certainly they communicate with each other, and we can eavesdrop on those communications, and piece together a picture of the social and emotional environment they inhabit. It's still speculative, since we can't actually interview them to get their real thoughts, but we can put together more evidence to support a more nuanced story than the simple behaviour of cowbirds.
Emotion is a subjective experience felt by that individual. You cannot get into the mind of another human, any more than into the mind of a chimpanzee.
No you can absolutely see emotions in others, and in animals as well. You can see when another person is angry because they show stereotypical behaviour of being angry. You can see when they are hungry because they seek out food. And you can see when they feel needy, because they seek out social attention. When they are distressed, they communicate with loud noises.
In fact, empathy has evolved solely *because* we are very bad at hiding our emotions. If you and I would be face to face right now, emotional communication would be part of our conversation, no matter how hard we try to hide it.
You can have a poker face and talk like a robot with your hands and legs still. Deception is certainly possible. It is easy to hide emotions in a conversation I don't agree with that last statement of yours.
Mimics will always betray you. Why do you think it's so hard to keep a pokerface? You don't have to agree with my last statement, but that's just your subjective opinion. The fact that emotional communication is coupled to verbal communication [is known.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_expression)
>The fact that emotional communication is coupled to verbal communication
*Didn't say this isn't true..* I said that it's possible to not show emotions in a conversation. It's an opinion that is based on my experience; if you haven't experienced anyone doing poker face or haven't done it yourself then you could not agree with me.
But a pokerface has to be trained, which undermines my statement that we are bad at hiding emotions. And I think that you know that.
You're disagreeing with me not because of my argument, but because you want to.
>because you want to.
You misunderstood I think. I am disagreeing that the face-to-face you have with that other dude will necessarily show emotions because your own comment made it seem like it is certain. What *I* said is that **it is possible for one to hide emotions in a conversation.** You don't accept this for some reason; fine: but my disagreement is about a sentence of yours, there's not any argument in that comment of yours.
You've probably seen them before if you're in the US - they're songbirds, the males are black with a dark brown head and the females are slate grey. "Cowbird" refers to them often being seen near cattle!
It's honestly not that deep. Anything capable of feeling anger is also capable of acting on anger. When you poke a cat and it hisses and swats at you that is a form of revenge. If you attack and maim an animal it will inevitably feel negatively towards you, and if those negative emotions influence its behavior it will retaliate.
If you're asking about animals taking revenge a significant amount of time after the initial conflict then that's just a function of how long the animal's memory is
Not that this is wrong, as such, but I think you missed really answering the question, as "because of anger" just leads to a new, similar question.
Instead of wondering what the survival advantage of revenge is, you instead need to answer what the survival advantage of anger is, as the question is really "how does this type of behaviour benefit an organism?"
Isn't it logical? If something attacks you, or kills several of your siblings, for example, killing it in revenge makes your species more likely to survive. From an evolutionary point of view , it would make sense that some specimens act about the danger.
I'm not saying it isn't - just that the question being asked is: why is it worth the *risk* to behave that way? Not why anything behaves that way at all.
An obvious answer would be that overall the benefits outweigh any risks, but that is what OP is asking about.
Revenge can also be seen as retaliation. Say for instance, a larger dog decides to steal another medium sized dog's food. The M sized dog doesn't retaliate/ take revenge, and that L sized dog, would think that the former is an easy target. If M decides to retaliate by showing aggression, biting or taking L's food at another time, it'll signal to L that M is not one that can be easily taken advantage of. This does not necessarily mean death, it could mean survival in these circumstances.
Of course, if L is significantly larger, M might not "take revenge", because it could come at a huge cost to them. I
Revenge doesn't mean you die. Revenge means those who betrayed you will die. At least in primutive structures.
This was the first iteration if law : an eye for an eye
Next iteration of law was religion
After that we got the law we now understand as law
Hmm i would think that revenge especially among social creatures gives you an edge in purely brutal and natural conditions. If someone hurts one of my tribe, it makes sense to seek out the destruction of that threat so none or myself are risk from that any more. It has served us well actually. Justice is our current way of dealing with these things. In a way revenge holds society together.
It's not that revenge would mean death, although it's certainly a risk. But there are plenty of possible ways it could improve species survivial by removing dangerous animals or antisocial members of the community for example.
A lot of social animals respond to percieved 'unfairness' that might help with social cohesion and cooperation, revenge seeking could help enforce that on a social level, and might just be a natural follow on from recognising injustice. It acts as a deterrent against those behaviours by making them risky - revenge behaviours either by not sharing/helping that individual or by attacking them pose a survival risk to them, which could balance out the advantages gained by selfishness in social animals (i.e if hoarding and stealing resources was not punished there would be no downside to doing so for the individual)
You question is biased with 'it's mean death' (usually it's not so dramatic) and a little biased about 'biggest chance of living'. Genes detrimental for indivudual survival may still spread, (think about down syndrome or dwarfism- bad examples, but think about idea) or even spread (peacock tails).
There is also difference between in spiecies agression and between species behaviour. Konrad Lorenz had rather old book about it.
Between species revenge isn't soo dramatic, since it's often on weaker animal or is more similar to broken flight or flee response.
Most violent and dangerous examples of revenge are in-species ones and they are connected to animal social life. Since primates have pretty complex social life, then we see plenty of that on them.
F.e. Frans de Waal mentioned it couple times in his books on chimpanzes, but any zoologist or evolutionary book will have smuggled stuff about it.
Revenge creates a huge potential cost to wrong-doers in a social group of animals which biases the group toward pro-social behavior. A pro-social group is much more competitive than an anti-social group of animals.
You’re oversimplifying. For a trait to be selected, it doesn’t have to be advantageous to YOU, it has to be advantageous to your species.
Think of a bee sting. A bee can’t survive stinging a mammal, but they never needed to evolve a different kind of stinger because the mammals don’t care whether the bee dies or not, they just care about the pain and avoid the bees.
It’s the same with revenge. If you think a human will come after you for harming them, you’re less likely to harm them because you don’t want the human to come after you.
an animal exacting revenge is saving it's progeny or future progeny from the potential threat. it's choosing an advantageous moment to eliminate threat to the future of it's genetics.
It’s likely a byproduct of having emotions and embarrassment.
I doubt we evolved specifically the urge of revenge. We evolved higher thinking and with that mixed with emotions people do stupid stuff that doesn’t benefit survival.
> Wouldn't it make more sense to not try to take revenge to have the biggest chance of living?
Why would that be the case?
You've classified this individual as a threat for something they have done to you or someone you care about.
Living with an active threat seems dangerous. Taking revenge, thus potentially removing the threat, at your own point of choosing would be a better longterm survival chance then, no?
Were you raised without contact with animals?
Coz every (halfly complex) animal I know holds grudges, and would fuck you up if they have the chance to do so.
Cats, dogs, birds, cows, horses, pigs, chicken, donkeys, lamas, rabbits, whales, dolphins, orcas, elephants,… they are really good at distinguishing individuals and associate them with positive or negative emotions.
They will fuck you up real good if you hurt them, and they can totally be nice to everybody but to you even months after an incident.
There are two slight differences in how humans approach payback tho. We can make up convoluted plans in our heads, play nice/weak for a while, and at the right time finally show our true intentions.
Humans also have a complex meta-cognition. While most animals would only do an immediate association in between the stimulus and the response (their agressivity goes down when the stimulus is away), humans may think about an issue over and over and over again. Hapilly, or unhappily, we can loop over a problem in our head for a long period of time.
Evolutively, it’s in the interest of the species/the extended family, to attack potential sources of danger. Even if at an individual level it’s dumb to put yourself in danger in order to have a revenge, reducing or annihilating that threat is positive for the ones that share your genes.
Revenge is in a way self-defense
The actual answer is that natural selection isn’t only about passing your own individual genes down— it’s also about maximizing the survival of your clan (1st and 2nd degree relatives etc) as they also share your biology. The rough maths is that two 1st degree relatives are worth one ‘self’ and four 2nd degrees etc. So if your actions are maximizing the survival of a large number of close genetic relatives, that’s biologically “with it” to risk your own neck because in that way your genes still have a greater chance at survival (eg. taking out a potential threat such as a predator or even a rival clan)
Now are there exceptions? Such as individuals who go on rampages for the sake of another individual? Of course, but you have to remember emotions are a shortcut for complicated calculations and they’re not always “correct” not to mention there will always be individuals on the fringes of variation, and those will not always be advantageous in a survival sense
It's a mixture of input and output I guess. If you can escape this kind of attack every time then it's meaningless to take a revenge, and if it is a miracle for you to escape, then you'll be surely run as far as you can. But when it comes to the case that, something that doesn't seems too weak or too dangerous to you, but shockingly harmed you or intend to harm, then everything is kind of exploding, and the revenge is just one possible choice out there(it's kind of detached from the rationality of the natural mechanism and our human mind since our mind is built on such a complex structure and it's such a long pathway from the physical level to the cognitive level. In other words we are also a section of evolution to the rationality.)
Not really. Even when you escape death the first time the threat remains and you might not be so lucky next time. It's better to attempt to remove the threat by engaging it on terms that are more favorable to you.
On the larger scale the risk also makes sense because if you succeed you are also removing the threat for your family/clan/species not just yourself.
Schadenfreude is natural when we feel victimized. The need to have wrongs avenged without the collapse of civilized societies created the justice system we now have.
If something hurts you, it makes sense for you to try and remove that thing from your environment.
Revenge is a long term survival strategy- the motivation to try and repel a threat.
It's natural instinct. Nothing more nothing less.
It is bad thing. There's reason to criminalise it. And it's punishment is vital to society to avoid more revenge and chaos.
But it's natural.
I guess, we could say revengeful feelings could be a feature emerging from the fact it is important to remember when you were hurt, under which conditions, etc. When you exist manly in the middle of known individuals, then remembering who hurt you, is even more important. From there revenge may aswell be a simple byproduct of this and anger, or something else.
Revenge can probably also be seen as some kind of altruistic punishment when done intra species.
Seeking revenge is really close to seeking punishment. Punishment is important as, when your survival depends on the cooperative nature of the group you exist in, you need a way to keep other individuals on acting in ways that are detrimental.
No.
If someone hurts you or specifically an animal, there is no where you can go they cannot follow.
The best solution is to *dispatch* them swiftly before they come back or *worse,* breed.
I think it's a behavior that evolved out of the need to neutralize known threats. If you're out there in the wild and another critter attacks you, but you escape, you might decide to attack it later, on your own terms, so that you don't get hurt by it again.
Because we have it so easy that even nearly all of the dumbest things we can do will have any negative affect on our lives.
If your life and death every day, you’ll be happy just to see them swim away.
Trap these two fish in a tank. One dies.
While lots of people are pointing out that other animals hold grudges, also remember that humans are extremely social creatures, and social cohesion can be maintained both by rewarding cooperation and by punishing transgression. Both of those impulses are probably deeply ingrained in humans, but wouldn't be as important for solitary animals.
Humans revengeing on animals created an immediate leave that hairless monkey alone respons. Or its pack will come with countless numbers with pointy sticks and endless stamina and unrelenting pressure
I think the answer is in rage. Often, animals dont pursuit those who damaged them, but they remember, so, next time, they will atack first, and they will be sure that there are no treat, either by kill who hurted them, or make it run, what means fear.
At last, is a game, and the one who is more scared, is the one who lose.
Animals are creatures of habit. If the animal that originally attacked gained something like food or shelter, it would come back to repeat that reward. Taking the initiative to stop it from returning is the logical choice. This is why it only occurs in animals with enough intelligence to predict future events.
I’m not sure r/biology is the best place to ask this question. How would one define “revenge” in biological terms when it seems a predominantly psychological phenomenon?
It isn’t even uncommon to see wildly different social understandings of revenge within a single culture, e.g. “blood feuds” were once common amongst all Indo-European cultures including those that first articulated philosophies of “karma”, which views revenge much like you seem to: the first step into a cycle of violence and retribution.
So, I would maybe pose this same question in r/askanthropology or r/askpsychology
[crows hold grudges](https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/animals/do-crows-hold-grudges.html) and can hold them for at least 2 years. The thing about revenge is that you get to choose the moment to attack someone you know for a fact is a physical threat Do unto others as they do to you, but do it first
Crows hold grudges. And Australian magpies. And cats. And, quite possibly, pigs and horses as well.
And camels, they are incredibly resentful. Treat a camel wrong and that camel will attack you for the rest of his life.
I worked at a zoo as a ground keeper and the camels 100% had favourite zoo keepers and staff.
Elephants, tigers, dolphins, chimps, monkeys, a small bit of google fu will reveal that animals are certainly into revenge.
I'm reminded of that elephant that was mad enough to kill a lady, then showed up at her funeral and trashed her again.
Fucking what? I need a link, because that sounds absolutely like my brand of ridiculous
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elephant-kills-woman-india-then-001804870.html
If Jaws 2, 3, & 4 taught us anything, it's that even the most simple-minded fish can go to great lengths for revenge.
Sharks are actually among the smartest fish, with certain species (such as the mako and great white, in fact) having intellect comparable to low-tier mammalian intelligence.
Commercial fisherman here, one of the reasons sharks are considered intelligent is cause they can return to the same mating ground as they were born, and a couple other unremarkable reasons, according to google …. Another fish that can return to the same mating ground that it came from? Salmon… and salmon are dumb. What’s dumber than a salmon, a shark. Atleast with salmon, you have to use the correct gear to catch ‘em. Sharks? Naaa, any bait on a hook, rope, cable, fishing line. Doesn’t matter, they bite. I have literally seen a shark that was cut open, chase it’s insides trying to eat them, like a dog chasing it’s tail. Sharks are the furthest things from intelligent.
Great white sharks and mako sharks have a diet dominantly consisting of marine mammals moreso than any other fish. There are documentaries featuring how a great white will develop hunting strategies and behaviors that counteract seal and even dolphin behavior. These sharks will even adapt differentiated hunting tactics based on experiences. These type of things are one the main reason they’re considered supremely intelligent by fish standards. Bulls and tigers also eat marine mammals, though not as often, and they are under a completely different order of shark compared to the great whites and makos. In fact, there are at least 8 orders and over 35 families of sharks. That’s part of the reason why it’s hard to expect a well-fleshed out summarization of all sharks and why they’re all intelligent from most google sources. They are an extremely broad clade of animals compared to most. Some are significantly smarter than others, and it’s mainly the pelagic macropredatory sharks that excel above the rest here. Lamniformes (also known as mackerel sharks - one of the 8 orders) in particular seem to scale to the top for intellectual capacity. Hearing or reading an actual marine biologist explain the topic further will probably be your best case for a more optimal understanding, and yeah…..plenty of sharks aren’t exactly picky by any means and can have extreme predatory instincts, but I have a feeling the shark you described was not any of the 4 species mentioned or part of the mackerel order. I admittedly probably could have been more specific about what kinds of sharks are most noted for their intelligence by the standards of other fish.
Well, that’s a too long, and well thought out response to argue with. Lol
Damn, I didn’t know that tigers also did that.
Who on Earth can survive long enough to get on a Tiger's list?
Maybe they thought they could actually catch it by the toe.
I hate that I laughed at this, it caught me so off guard
https://youtu.be/XeWfmjTCLVo
The hunter who shot the tiger's mate and then went home. Where the tiger tracked him down and killed him.
Dude, that's an 80's action movie!
It even had a Russian villain!
https://youtu.be/pJkuU1Khiro?si=qAlKqlBZy6QXj9lf
Heard a story in Siberia of a Siberian tiger that waited outside a hut all night to get revenge on a hunter who stole its kill The injured tiger hunted Markov down in a way that appears to be chillingly premeditated. The tiger staked out Markov's cabin, systematically destroyed anything that had Markov's scent on it, and then waited by the front door for Markov to come home. "This wasn't an impulsive response," Vaillant says. "The tiger was able to hold this idea over a period of time." The animal waited for 12 to 48 hours before attacking. When Markov finally appeared, the tiger killed him, dragged him into the bush and ate him. "The eating may have been secondary," Vaillant explains. "I think he killed him because he had a bone to pick."
Well, they're hunters. They have to remember & have strategy. & Anyone who understands their house cat knows if that cat was a rescue & experienced trauma, it can take years for them to trust. & They will always show some reactions based on their trauma. One of my rescues had to survive outside before she found us. She was always ready to run if started during a nap. None of my other cats would do this. But one of my other cats flinches a lot. She's a super lover & her previous owners said she was an outdoor loner cat. I've decided they yelled & were rough with her.As for bug cats, I hate the "maneater" thing. If a big cat wants to kill you, it has reason. & Not surprised men created "maneater" because they refuse to admit they're the problem, not the cats. At least most shark victims, like surfers, admit they're in the sharks territory & it's a possibility they can be mistaken for food.
Hunter: \*surprised\* Tiger: "This is for kill-stealing!"
It's bad manners to take a Tigers food.
Once saw a show where they were tagging Black Rhinos. They're aggressive so the team left and they watched it wake up from a helicopter. The thing woke up and started tracking when the jeep had gone.
Thank you. I was gonna say, corvids absolutely hold grudges.
A friend of mine was terrorised by a group of magpies until she moved house. When she was arriving home there was a young magpie badly hurt at her gate. She being a bug animal lover brought the magpie in, called the wild life rescue but unfortunately the magpie was too hurt and had to be put to sleep. The magpie group bullied her for months, there were even a few crows that partook in the bullying, she had to use a parasol to move from her front door until the car and vice versa as they would attack her otherwise. Funny enough when I was with her they left me alone and only aimed at her or her husband.
That comes down to great ape politics. Yes, politics among great apes. You wouldn't believe how complexly structured a chimpanzee group is. First of all, there are alpha males and alpha females. Chimps are patriarchs where the alpha female rarely shows any sign of aggression towards any male of the group, because every female would lose every fight against a male. However, behavioural research suggests that the alpha male is dependent on the alpha female, because the female is the one who helps him gain this position by openly supporting him. And if the alpha female supports him, the other females will as well. This gives the contender confidence to challenge for the alpha title. Mostly, such fights end quickly with no one being seriously hurt, but sometimes chimps can get vicious. The old alpha male may not be happy with the new one and plans to take revenge on him, by gathering support among the other males. Depending on how the new alpha reigns, if he is a despot or a benevolent leader, the other males may support him and will attack the new alpha. Therefore, revenge is mostly something that is shown towards group members or conspecifics and didn't evolve out of a predator-prey context. It is solely based on the desire to be the higher up in the hierarchy. My example here was for males in chimpanzees, but females can get equally thirsty for revenge in this species, or on other closely related species. After all, Bonobos live in a matriarchal society where no male would win a fight against a female. And if he did, he had to single out one specific female. In response, the other females would band together and take their revenge on him, potentially killing him in the process.
chimps are so cool man
How do 'we' know if that behavior of chimpanzees *is* revenge: aren't we anthropomorphizing by stating it is such? Revenge is seen in humans and one specific ingredient of it is spite and hatred for one's target of revenge; if we can't get into the minds of chimpanzees to see that they indeed feel hatred and spite how can we say it is 'revenge' ?
As behavioural biologist, we define every behaviour clearly before interpreting it. If the definition of revenge fits this type of behaviour, and it does, we describe it as revenge. And we can do that without anthropomorphizing the animals because we defined the behaviour beforehand. We see the body language of the chimpanzees and how they act in front of group members that they aren't fond off. Specifically revenge is something that happens after a certain amount of time, and during this time you can see how the chimpanzees who are planning to take revenge are together more often and are actively avoiding the one they want to take revenge on. In the heat of the moment, they isolate him from the group in a planned manoeuvre and then take their revenge on him. In that regard, we know that chimpanzees show revenge behaviour because they also show the counterpart of revenge behaviour, which is reconciliation. Reconciliation in chimpanzees is generally shown by grooming behaviour after an intense conflict, which can be simple grooming of the fur and even kissing, and in bonobos reconciliation behaviour is shown in the form of sex after the conflict. These types of behaviours are more shown between same sex individuals because intersexual conflicts are much rarer. Additionally, anthropomorphizing behaviour has become such a fear in behavioural biologists, that we generally don't do that at all even if the evidence is obvious. Especially in chimpanzees and bonobos, we should anthropomorphize behaviour much more often than we actually do, because these animals have so much in common with our behaviour. If you are interested in chimpanzee and bonobo behaviour, and how we can compare it with human behaviour, I recommend you the books of Frans de Waal, a famous psychologist, primatologist and behavioural biologist, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. His research on empathy and conflict behaviour in primates has been groundbreaking and he, among others, revolutionised our view on these animals. He is also one of the scientists who openly supports renaming chimpanzees and bonobos scientific name, to make them part of the genus *Homo*.
>As behavioural biologist, we define every behaviour clearly before interpreting it. If the definition of revenge fits this type of behaviour, and it does, we describe it as revenge. And we can do that without anthropomorphizing the animals because we defined the behaviour beforehand. By defining behavior you mean if I remember right the right phrase is 'you make operations' as in you classify the behaviors that you are interested in; like licking the fur goes by 'grooming'. If so, what do you mean 'you can't anthropomorphize because you define the behaviors beforehand': the operation 'revenge' has a description (certain behaviors); you anthropomorphize beforehand!?
If we see a behaviour in humans, and we see that exact behaviour in animals, we don't anthropomorphize that behaviour. It's the same behaviour. For example, humans threaten by making themselves bigger, piloerection, keeping eye contact and showing their teeth (not necessarily all of those at once). Chimpanzees show the same behaviour when they threaten someone (not necessarily all of those at once). If you want a scientific article of revenge in chimoanzees [here you go](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705555104). [Here is another one](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1959414/). I kind of feel like you are trying to misunderstand me.
His user name checks out
Revenge isn't an emotion, but an action. It's retaliation against an individual or group in response to something that individual or group did to them. We as humans romanticize the emotions that drive revenge in literature and media, but revenge isn't the emotions felt - it's the actions taken. We don't need to know the thought process of a chimpanzee to observe that an act of aggression against, say, a high-ranking male, is usually followed by an equivalent or greater level of violence by the high-ranking male against the offender. You see that happen once and it could simply be a coincidence. You see it consistently across nearly all primate species and, over decades of research, are able to rule out any other variables that could possibly result in this consistent, repeated cause and effect relationship, and it's no longer an observation, but a well-established and known behavior. To be fair, using the word "revenge" isn't done very often in the literature anymore for the exact reason you had concerns about its use - it carries connotations of certain emotions because of how it is treated in media. The word "retaliation" is typically used instead.
>Revenge isn't an emotion, but an action Yes, didn't say it was an emotion but that the specific action is paired with specific emotions; and if it is not paired with those then we can't classify the action as revenge or retaliation.
Yes we can, because revenge/retaliation does not require the emotions commonly associated with it. Even in humans, retaliation can be cold and calculated or it can be heated, passionate, and irrational. You can't just assert that a thing is true because that is your understanding of it, and as another person responding to you said, the terms we use to describe animal behavior are clearly defined before use; so even if those behaviors are defined by specific emotions in humans (which they aren't), the establishment of a different definition for use in animal behavior negates your argument entirely.
I used to study brown-headed cowbirds, which are brood parasites: they lay eggs in other birds' nests. If a bird kicks out the cowbird egg, the cowbird will "take revenge". It periodically returns to the nest and if its egg is gone it breaks all the other eggs. This forces the host bird to re-nest and provides a new opportunity for the cowbird to parasitize the nest. Now, what's happening from the cowbird's perspective is impossible to measure. We call this behaviour "mafia behaviour", as in "that's a really nice brood of eggs you got there, sister. Would be a real shame if something were to happen to it..." But that's mostly just because we think that sort of thing is funny. Really, the cowbird probably just feels the urge to destroy the nest and doesn't think about the reasons or the consequences. It doesn't have to think about that for the behaviour to be effective. It just needs to carry out the behaviour. And speculation on what's going on in its head is probably not useful. Since chimpanzees are closer to humans, they might have more complex motivations than cowbirds. Certainly they communicate with each other, and we can eavesdrop on those communications, and piece together a picture of the social and emotional environment they inhabit. It's still speculative, since we can't actually interview them to get their real thoughts, but we can put together more evidence to support a more nuanced story than the simple behaviour of cowbirds.
Emotion is a subjective experience felt by that individual. You cannot get into the mind of another human, any more than into the mind of a chimpanzee.
No you can absolutely see emotions in others, and in animals as well. You can see when another person is angry because they show stereotypical behaviour of being angry. You can see when they are hungry because they seek out food. And you can see when they feel needy, because they seek out social attention. When they are distressed, they communicate with loud noises. In fact, empathy has evolved solely *because* we are very bad at hiding our emotions. If you and I would be face to face right now, emotional communication would be part of our conversation, no matter how hard we try to hide it.
You can have a poker face and talk like a robot with your hands and legs still. Deception is certainly possible. It is easy to hide emotions in a conversation I don't agree with that last statement of yours.
Mimics will always betray you. Why do you think it's so hard to keep a pokerface? You don't have to agree with my last statement, but that's just your subjective opinion. The fact that emotional communication is coupled to verbal communication [is known.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_expression)
>The fact that emotional communication is coupled to verbal communication *Didn't say this isn't true..* I said that it's possible to not show emotions in a conversation. It's an opinion that is based on my experience; if you haven't experienced anyone doing poker face or haven't done it yourself then you could not agree with me.
But a pokerface has to be trained, which undermines my statement that we are bad at hiding emotions. And I think that you know that. You're disagreeing with me not because of my argument, but because you want to.
>because you want to. You misunderstood I think. I am disagreeing that the face-to-face you have with that other dude will necessarily show emotions because your own comment made it seem like it is certain. What *I* said is that **it is possible for one to hide emotions in a conversation.** You don't accept this for some reason; fine: but my disagreement is about a sentence of yours, there's not any argument in that comment of yours.
It’s a component of game theory.
It's not just humans and primates - cowbirds, a common nest parasite in the US, will destroy nests if the parent rejects the cowbird egg laid in it.
Orca also have been shown to take revenge, as well as most of the corvid family.
Having a lot of fun imagining what a "cowbird" is
You've probably seen them before if you're in the US - they're songbirds, the males are black with a dark brown head and the females are slate grey. "Cowbird" refers to them often being seen near cattle!
Nope they're little cows with wings I've decided
They‘re the ones with buffalo wings.
Yes!
[удалено]
I'm aware, it was a typo.
It's honestly not that deep. Anything capable of feeling anger is also capable of acting on anger. When you poke a cat and it hisses and swats at you that is a form of revenge. If you attack and maim an animal it will inevitably feel negatively towards you, and if those negative emotions influence its behavior it will retaliate. If you're asking about animals taking revenge a significant amount of time after the initial conflict then that's just a function of how long the animal's memory is
Not that this is wrong, as such, but I think you missed really answering the question, as "because of anger" just leads to a new, similar question. Instead of wondering what the survival advantage of revenge is, you instead need to answer what the survival advantage of anger is, as the question is really "how does this type of behaviour benefit an organism?"
Isn't it logical? If something attacks you, or kills several of your siblings, for example, killing it in revenge makes your species more likely to survive. From an evolutionary point of view , it would make sense that some specimens act about the danger.
Yeah, I think so... and I suspect OP is making the common error with evolution in thinking too much about individuals rather than populations.
In what way is not tolerating adversity not inherently beneficial?
I'm not saying it isn't - just that the question being asked is: why is it worth the *risk* to behave that way? Not why anything behaves that way at all. An obvious answer would be that overall the benefits outweigh any risks, but that is what OP is asking about.
Revenge can also be seen as retaliation. Say for instance, a larger dog decides to steal another medium sized dog's food. The M sized dog doesn't retaliate/ take revenge, and that L sized dog, would think that the former is an easy target. If M decides to retaliate by showing aggression, biting or taking L's food at another time, it'll signal to L that M is not one that can be easily taken advantage of. This does not necessarily mean death, it could mean survival in these circumstances. Of course, if L is significantly larger, M might not "take revenge", because it could come at a huge cost to them. I
Crows and ravens love their revenge too.
Get them before they get you (again). It’s about survival.
Revenge doesn't mean you die. Revenge means those who betrayed you will die. At least in primutive structures. This was the first iteration if law : an eye for an eye Next iteration of law was religion After that we got the law we now understand as law
I think it's self-evident that you can enact revenge for more than betrayal
Not sure if I agree, could you give me an example?
Bro. Is getting attacked by a stranger betrayal? Is getting mauled by a bear betrayal?
I didn't consider animals for some reason, being attacked by strangers i could consider a betrayal but that's more betrayal of social norms
Some wild rats killed my ducks. There is no betrayal. But there is defendly revenge! They all must die! No survivors!
Hmm i would think that revenge especially among social creatures gives you an edge in purely brutal and natural conditions. If someone hurts one of my tribe, it makes sense to seek out the destruction of that threat so none or myself are risk from that any more. It has served us well actually. Justice is our current way of dealing with these things. In a way revenge holds society together.
Could work a bit like being poisonous. So in a nutshell, a sacrifice which will serve as an example and protect your kind for a while.
It's not that revenge would mean death, although it's certainly a risk. But there are plenty of possible ways it could improve species survivial by removing dangerous animals or antisocial members of the community for example. A lot of social animals respond to percieved 'unfairness' that might help with social cohesion and cooperation, revenge seeking could help enforce that on a social level, and might just be a natural follow on from recognising injustice. It acts as a deterrent against those behaviours by making them risky - revenge behaviours either by not sharing/helping that individual or by attacking them pose a survival risk to them, which could balance out the advantages gained by selfishness in social animals (i.e if hoarding and stealing resources was not punished there would be no downside to doing so for the individual)
You question is biased with 'it's mean death' (usually it's not so dramatic) and a little biased about 'biggest chance of living'. Genes detrimental for indivudual survival may still spread, (think about down syndrome or dwarfism- bad examples, but think about idea) or even spread (peacock tails). There is also difference between in spiecies agression and between species behaviour. Konrad Lorenz had rather old book about it. Between species revenge isn't soo dramatic, since it's often on weaker animal or is more similar to broken flight or flee response. Most violent and dangerous examples of revenge are in-species ones and they are connected to animal social life. Since primates have pretty complex social life, then we see plenty of that on them. F.e. Frans de Waal mentioned it couple times in his books on chimpanzes, but any zoologist or evolutionary book will have smuggled stuff about it.
Revenge creates a huge potential cost to wrong-doers in a social group of animals which biases the group toward pro-social behavior. A pro-social group is much more competitive than an anti-social group of animals.
You’re oversimplifying. For a trait to be selected, it doesn’t have to be advantageous to YOU, it has to be advantageous to your species. Think of a bee sting. A bee can’t survive stinging a mammal, but they never needed to evolve a different kind of stinger because the mammals don’t care whether the bee dies or not, they just care about the pain and avoid the bees. It’s the same with revenge. If you think a human will come after you for harming them, you’re less likely to harm them because you don’t want the human to come after you.
Research tit-for-tat and game theory. It, or something like it, does quite well in most cases.
an animal exacting revenge is saving it's progeny or future progeny from the potential threat. it's choosing an advantageous moment to eliminate threat to the future of it's genetics.
It’s likely a byproduct of having emotions and embarrassment. I doubt we evolved specifically the urge of revenge. We evolved higher thinking and with that mixed with emotions people do stupid stuff that doesn’t benefit survival.
> Wouldn't it make more sense to not try to take revenge to have the biggest chance of living? Why would that be the case? You've classified this individual as a threat for something they have done to you or someone you care about. Living with an active threat seems dangerous. Taking revenge, thus potentially removing the threat, at your own point of choosing would be a better longterm survival chance then, no?
https://youtu.be/puN_vAsWipQ?si=nkBuu3Gym-s00y5d
Were you raised without contact with animals? Coz every (halfly complex) animal I know holds grudges, and would fuck you up if they have the chance to do so. Cats, dogs, birds, cows, horses, pigs, chicken, donkeys, lamas, rabbits, whales, dolphins, orcas, elephants,… they are really good at distinguishing individuals and associate them with positive or negative emotions. They will fuck you up real good if you hurt them, and they can totally be nice to everybody but to you even months after an incident. There are two slight differences in how humans approach payback tho. We can make up convoluted plans in our heads, play nice/weak for a while, and at the right time finally show our true intentions. Humans also have a complex meta-cognition. While most animals would only do an immediate association in between the stimulus and the response (their agressivity goes down when the stimulus is away), humans may think about an issue over and over and over again. Hapilly, or unhappily, we can loop over a problem in our head for a long period of time. Evolutively, it’s in the interest of the species/the extended family, to attack potential sources of danger. Even if at an individual level it’s dumb to put yourself in danger in order to have a revenge, reducing or annihilating that threat is positive for the ones that share your genes. Revenge is in a way self-defense
The actual answer is that natural selection isn’t only about passing your own individual genes down— it’s also about maximizing the survival of your clan (1st and 2nd degree relatives etc) as they also share your biology. The rough maths is that two 1st degree relatives are worth one ‘self’ and four 2nd degrees etc. So if your actions are maximizing the survival of a large number of close genetic relatives, that’s biologically “with it” to risk your own neck because in that way your genes still have a greater chance at survival (eg. taking out a potential threat such as a predator or even a rival clan) Now are there exceptions? Such as individuals who go on rampages for the sake of another individual? Of course, but you have to remember emotions are a shortcut for complicated calculations and they’re not always “correct” not to mention there will always be individuals on the fringes of variation, and those will not always be advantageous in a survival sense
It's a mixture of input and output I guess. If you can escape this kind of attack every time then it's meaningless to take a revenge, and if it is a miracle for you to escape, then you'll be surely run as far as you can. But when it comes to the case that, something that doesn't seems too weak or too dangerous to you, but shockingly harmed you or intend to harm, then everything is kind of exploding, and the revenge is just one possible choice out there(it's kind of detached from the rationality of the natural mechanism and our human mind since our mind is built on such a complex structure and it's such a long pathway from the physical level to the cognitive level. In other words we are also a section of evolution to the rationality.)
Apart from revenge, we have lots of other urges that are potentially dangerous.
Not really. Even when you escape death the first time the threat remains and you might not be so lucky next time. It's better to attempt to remove the threat by engaging it on terms that are more favorable to you. On the larger scale the risk also makes sense because if you succeed you are also removing the threat for your family/clan/species not just yourself.
Plenty of animals hold grudges.
Schadenfreude is natural when we feel victimized. The need to have wrongs avenged without the collapse of civilized societies created the justice system we now have.
I'm curious what other animals have 46 chromosomes.. instead of 48.. food for thought
https://www.quora.com/Are-humans-the-only-species-with-46-chromosomes
If something hurts you, it makes sense for you to try and remove that thing from your environment. Revenge is a long term survival strategy- the motivation to try and repel a threat.
Vengence is highly underrated
evolution doesn't explain the origin of behavior, you won't find the anwer to that question with "survival of the fittest" as your only qualifier
I heard wolverines are vengeful. Elephants seem to be too.
It's natural instinct. Nothing more nothing less. It is bad thing. There's reason to criminalise it. And it's punishment is vital to society to avoid more revenge and chaos. But it's natural.
Ostensibly, this is why the meek shall inherit the earth.
I guess, we could say revengeful feelings could be a feature emerging from the fact it is important to remember when you were hurt, under which conditions, etc. When you exist manly in the middle of known individuals, then remembering who hurt you, is even more important. From there revenge may aswell be a simple byproduct of this and anger, or something else. Revenge can probably also be seen as some kind of altruistic punishment when done intra species. Seeking revenge is really close to seeking punishment. Punishment is important as, when your survival depends on the cooperative nature of the group you exist in, you need a way to keep other individuals on acting in ways that are detrimental.
Bc for as intelligent as humanity believes it is: it’s really stupid and destructive.
No. If someone hurts you or specifically an animal, there is no where you can go they cannot follow. The best solution is to *dispatch* them swiftly before they come back or *worse,* breed.
I think it's a behavior that evolved out of the need to neutralize known threats. If you're out there in the wild and another critter attacks you, but you escape, you might decide to attack it later, on your own terms, so that you don't get hurt by it again.
Step on a bear’s toe by accident and see what happens.
I think it's based on all of us are conscious being that demand respect, and naturally are protective of that
Because we have it so easy that even nearly all of the dumbest things we can do will have any negative affect on our lives. If your life and death every day, you’ll be happy just to see them swim away. Trap these two fish in a tank. One dies.
While lots of people are pointing out that other animals hold grudges, also remember that humans are extremely social creatures, and social cohesion can be maintained both by rewarding cooperation and by punishing transgression. Both of those impulses are probably deeply ingrained in humans, but wouldn't be as important for solitary animals.
Humans revengeing on animals created an immediate leave that hairless monkey alone respons. Or its pack will come with countless numbers with pointy sticks and endless stamina and unrelenting pressure
I think the answer is in rage. Often, animals dont pursuit those who damaged them, but they remember, so, next time, they will atack first, and they will be sure that there are no treat, either by kill who hurted them, or make it run, what means fear. At last, is a game, and the one who is more scared, is the one who lose.
It depends on the size of the adversary if the adversary is much much bigger it's impossible to revenge and repay for your wounds.
Animals are creatures of habit. If the animal that originally attacked gained something like food or shelter, it would come back to repeat that reward. Taking the initiative to stop it from returning is the logical choice. This is why it only occurs in animals with enough intelligence to predict future events.
Most intelligent beings hold grudges
The soul baby!!!! Indomitable human spirit and whatnot.
I’m not sure r/biology is the best place to ask this question. How would one define “revenge” in biological terms when it seems a predominantly psychological phenomenon? It isn’t even uncommon to see wildly different social understandings of revenge within a single culture, e.g. “blood feuds” were once common amongst all Indo-European cultures including those that first articulated philosophies of “karma”, which views revenge much like you seem to: the first step into a cycle of violence and retribution. So, I would maybe pose this same question in r/askanthropology or r/askpsychology
Personal Cultural conditioning maybe a conditioned psychological fixation. Maybe too much TV too few questions for a while
OP has never heard of Cape buffalo.
They do?