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Judging from other animals, how independent are cats?

I believe that most cat owners have the same experience, that is, cats never like to cooperate, whether with humans or with each other. Daniel Mills, a professor at the University of Lincoln in the UK, also conducted a study that proved that cats prefer a state of autonomy and independence than dogs.

As aloof cats, they tend to go their own way, which reminds me of a wise saying: "Go your own way and let others shovel the shit!".

Since cats don’t like to cooperate, we naturally cannot measure their teamwork level. Therefore, we may think about it from another angle. In addition to cats, there are so many other kinds of animals in the world. Why are they willing to enjoy social life as part of a team?

The dilution effect of social animals

As we all know, social living is a common form of survival in nature, whether it is us humans, birds, beasts or fish , everyone seems to like to live in groups.

Even ferocious carnivores such as lions often hunt together. Everyone attaches great importance to teamwork, but only cats like to enjoy themselves.

From the perspective of behavioral economics, for almost all "prey species", their survival strategies have an obvious "collective sense of security" factor. In other words, this sense of security in a group is called the dilution effect.

Simply put, what is dangerous when living in nature is the possibility of being hunted at any time. Therefore, if you are alone, the probability of being killed when you encounter an enemy is 100%, but if you are with 100 of the same kind, then the probability of being killed as an individual will be reduced to 1%.

The multi-eye effect of social animals

In addition, animals living in groups will also enjoy another benefit, which we call the "multi-eye effect".

In other words, as the lower reaches of the food chain in nature, when the group of animals being hunted is larger, they are more likely to find natural enemies close to them more efficiently. Simply put, the sooner you discover your natural enemy, the more time you have to execute your escape plan.

This collective early warning also has other benefits. For example, living in groups can give each individual more time and energy to find food.

In addition, living in groups has another advantage in probability, which is that it makes it easier for animals to find mates. Because in the vast nature, it may be difficult for you to find a suitable partner when you are alone, but living in a group is different. You can fully enjoy the convenience of being close to water and buildings on a first-come-first-served basis.

Going one step further, when you and your spouse have a baby, animals living in groups also obey the "law of group housing": adult animals will cooperate with each other to protect each other or help feed your baby .

This is actually also applicable to humans. For example, some experts once observed the positive effects of this kind of behavior on athletes.

Athletes in the Tour de France will use the "collective competitive advantage" rule to compete. The faster riders will ride in a group to help the less powerful riders increase their speed, which will make them fall behind. It takes less physical energy for a player to reach the same speed.

With so many benefits to living in groups, it’s surprising to see animals living alone away from other species. Just as cats are used to living alone, what they reflect in their brain circuits is not the optimistic and positive benefits mentioned above, but more pessimistic thoughts.

Cats believe that although living in groups can make it easier to find food, it is not enough to make up for the shortcomings of other cats competing for food with them.

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Cats’ philosophy of life: One person is well fed and the whole family is not hungry

John Fryxel, a professor of biology at the University of Guelph in Canada, said: “A group of cats* **When eating at the same time, the presence of other cats of the same kind will make individual cats feel that their food has been reduced.”

Therefore, in the world of animals, whether they can get enough food has become one of the conditions for them to choose to live in groups.

Cats have always eaten a lot, such as leopards. A leopard eats 23 kilograms of meat every few days. Moreover, competition for food among wild cats is very fierce, so leopards choose to live alone and hunt alone.

Huh? Maybe you will think, why are lions social animals?

Yes, lions are the only exception to the solitary rule of cats. For them, the price of living in groups is the exchange of territory.

For example, African lions, in the wild savannah, find some excellent terrain that is conducive to ambush and hide themselves. After all, they are too large and move around easily. Only by controlling these favorable terrain can we achieve better results. survival advantage.

So, you see the lions in the movie grouping together, because they need to continuously strengthen their control over the terrain and drive away some powerful competitors like leopards and wild wolves, so as to gain the maximum victory.

What's more, in terms of lion hunting results, one wildebeest or zebra is completely enough to feed several lionesses at one time. So what really drives lions to live in groups is territoriality.

Economic Thinking in Cats’ Brains

Damn, you said lions like to occupy territory, but my cat obviously likes to occupy territory too!

That’s right, as cats, grabbing territory seems to have become a subtle law of competition. However, the situation of cats is different because they hunt small animals, such as mice.

When a wild cat catches a mouse, it will quickly eat the food whole because the mouse is too small to share with other companions.

This kind of economic thinking is deeply embedded in the neural brain circuits of cats. Even cats raised at home cannot change this basic tendency to eat alone.

Another point is that humans have never been able to domesticate cats. In fact, only cats themselves can domesticate themselves.

For example, all domestic cats are actually wild cats originating from the Middle East, also known as "forest cats." Humans have not tricked these cats out of the woods; on the contrary, these cats come uninvited so that they can catch large numbers of mice in human barns.

Therefore, when early humans saw that cats could control rodent infestations, they came up with the idea of ??raising cats; however, cats like barns because there is a lot of food here. In fact, this is essentially an equivalent exchange. As for the idea that cats like humans, it is just wishful thinking of later generations.

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If two cats live together for a long time, will they become friends?

I mentioned at the beginning of the article that I have two cats at home in Beijing: the yellow one is called "Clam", and the white one is called "Bai Mo'er".

Clam is the eldest, and Bai Moer was adopted later. I think most of the hard-working cat owners have a very naive idea, which is to let their domestic cats become good friends with each other.

However, after so long, I found that except for the moment of fighting for food, the two cats had almost no interaction in other things, except for fighting...

Later I realized that although domestic cats are not completely opposed to social interaction, their social ability, whether with people or their own kind, is entirely up to them.

In other words, cats retain their independence to a large extent. They only approach us when they need it, such as when they want food, when they treat humans as warm babies, etc. ...

Moreover, cats are most similar to lions, which are also members of the feline family, and also have "territory awareness." For example, cats pee around their territory just to avoid embarrassing encounters with other cats. To some extent, I suspect that all cats are autistic and don't like new people and things.

Moreover, when cats encounter similar animals entering their territory, they will erect their vellus hairs, extend their sharp claws, roar and start a fierce fight.

Living together is just to take advantage of each other

Many people may think that domestic cats are different from wild cats. Over time, they seem to be willing to live in groups.

For example, there were nearly 200 cats living together in the Colosseum in history. In Aoshima, Ehime Prefecture, Japan, the ratio of cats to humans was 6:1.

But make no mistake, some cats choose to live in the same place. In fact, their relationship is still very loose, and they do not feel any group identity. All they want is a separate space so that they can take care of their kittens.

What's more, cats never believe that numbers can bring power, so even in extremely dangerous situations, cats will not choose to cooperate with each other. In contrast, other animals usually band together into a defensive unit when faced with danger.

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Loneliness is my cat’s greatest glory

Now that I understand a little bit, I can’t help but wonder, does the poor baby cat not feel lonely? What?

In fact, I was worrying too much at this moment. Just like human beings, seemingly lively social interactions are actually just a passive choice forced by environmental conditions. Didn't Zhou Guoping once say: "Humans are born lonely."

Therefore, rather than saying that cats are lonely, it is better to regard this independence as a kind of progress. Maybe cats have long seen through the stupid actions of humans, so they insist on being aloof. As the saying goes, "they don't listen to what's going on outside the window, and they only want to be lazy foodies."

On the other hand, similar to how people conduct experiments on dogs, dogs can be made to complete any task repeatedly through food rewards. However, for cats who are not so easy to please, part of what we think of as the challenge is actually not knowing enough about cats.

Because the history of domestic cats is actually not that long, they have been ravaged by nature for a long time and are accustomed to a free-range lifestyle. Many behaviors have long been rooted in their brain circuits. How easy is it to change them?

Therefore, it may not be impossible to change the behavior of cats that do not like to live in groups, but the change is difficult to achieve through simple induction and training. For them, genetic changes are fundamental.

But then again, why change?

Human beings have controlled this world for so long, and finally there is a creature that we cannot tame. So why don’t you kneel down quickly and salute the supreme cats!

Reference:

① /ukchina/simp/vert-earth

② /JudgeAd