In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Size of Herds 2. Behavioural Studies on Herd Animals 3. Territory 4. Rules and Customs 5. Attributes 6. High IQ.
Contents:
- Size of Herds
- Behavioural Studies on Herd Animals
- Territory of Herd Animals
- Rules and Customs of Herd Life
- Attributes of Herd Life
- Herd Animals have High IQ
1. Size of Herds:
Herds come in all sizes. The basic unit is, however, small being constituted by not more than a dozen of participants. A herd may be confined to the members of a single family being represented by father, mother, few grown children and newly born young.
This family when added with the grand-parents and cousins forms a vast collection of animals of all ages and sexes. The herd may also be composed of a single male and a number of females or it may be formed by entirely male or entirely female groups and sexes mingle only during breeding season.
2. Behavioural Studies on Herd Animals:
Caribou is a herd animal in the truest sense. But the formation of the herd follows a kind of annual pattern keyed to the condition of the male’s antlers. The antlers begin to grow in the spring and fall off in the next spring. A yearling bull produces only one prong on each antler but the older he becomes more tines (branches) he has, until he reaches the prime. At the age of four or five he gets a magnificent rack (set of antlers).
The antler becomes fully developed by September. The bull then scrapes off the rough hairy skin cover of the antler and sharpens the points of the antler. That is he is ready to fight for a mate. He rounds up a few yearling females and starts forming his ‘harem’. He even tries to steal some other bull’s cows.
At this stage he will challenge or he is challenged by some other bull and the battle starts. Each tries to gore his rival with his antlers. Sometimes the contestants, antlers become so locked that both die of starvation.
Battle over, the winner retires with his wives (about a dozen in number) and mate. The loser may attack some weaker bull or may remain isolated for the year. During winter time the bull leads his meek wives to warmer quarters and makes himself responsible for the safety of his cows, holding off wolves and other enemies.
But with the advent of spring things change as the antlers fall off. The herd breaks up. The bull goes off to grow new antlers and the cows go off together to have their calves.
The common pattern of herd life here is—the members
(1) Split up,
(2) Come together for protection, shelter and reproduction, and
(3) Again split up.
Such a pattern is followed by Bison, wild cattle and goats.
3. Territory of Herd Animals:
A herd animal has no fixed home but this does not necessarily mean that it wanders everywhere. They keep themselves encompassed within a ‘Territory’ and stick to it. The territory may be large taking a number of days to travel from one end of the territory to the other end —the boundaries being determined by vegetation and climate.
The territory of the stags is less than a square mile. The domain of white-tailed deer is very narrow.
It is within this territory irrespective of its size the herd moves. Often it trails the same route or often it tramples out trails of its own. Some animals although sharing his territory freely with other animals of the same species, will not allow their own kind for the simple reason that they will have to compete for the same food supply and same females.
A herd of hippopotamuses make their ‘head-quarter’ in a gently flowing river. They spend the whole day here resting and tending the young’s. After dark they come to land in search of food and roam about in their own loop of land.
This territory belongs to him and his own family and other hippos stay away. Seal and walrus herds have their favoured breeding grounds where they resort year after year. They persistently come to the same spot and put up battle against intruders.
4. Rules and Customs of Herd Life:
A herd may very well be compared to a society and as in a society they learn how to get along one another. Herd life has many rules and customs and consequently herd life develops many special ways of behaving.
One of these is rank—a system by which an individual’s importance is established. Some members of the herd being physically stronger establish his authority over other members.
Peck-order amongst hens is an example of such dominance. Two hens meeting for the first time will peck at each other until one submits. The loser may not be hurt but becomes convinced that the opponent is a more important hen than she and as such considers herself lower in rank than her opponent.
A stable pecking order thus becomes established in the flock. Hen A can peck all the other hens. Hen B can peck all hens in the flock except A. Hen C can peck all others except A, B and so on. High ranking hens are first to eat. They gain more weight, lay more eggs and show fewer peck scars.
Cows attain their social rank by butting and once the order is settled the discord is at an end. The head cow leads the herd to and from pasture. Sometimes the aspirants, cows second or third in rank try to out- butt the current No. 1 and when they fail they become the most discontended and ill- tempered members of the herd. The most placids, after the No. 1 those meek members occupying the bottom of the social ladder.
Bottle-nose dolphins follow a sheep-like pattern and separate into bull herds and cow herds and get together during breeding season. Each group has its own social order. However, when the two groups unite the females drop their own system and each female takes her rank from that of her mate.
Such system of social ranking prevails among many wild animals but the system is made complicated by the presence of male members. As a rule, all males rank higher than the females.
5. Attributes of Herd Life:
The important attributes of herd life are mutual protection and food procurement.
Mutual protection:
Musk oxen protect themselves and their family against wolves by forming a living fortress. The musk ox has horns on its frontal bones. The horns curve down. Sensing an attack from the hungry beasts of prey the herd forms a circle.
Keeping females and young ones at the centre the males occupy positions on the periphery. The deadly battle line of horns terrifies the animals of prey and very seldom they can make a meal of the musk ox.
Whales, Walruses and Dolphins offer similar group defence against the killer whales. The dolphins being surrounded by a school of killer whales form a protective circle around their young’s. As they have no organs of defence some of their members are taken by the killer whales.
It has been observed that the dolphins push weaker members of the herd out of the circle offering them as a kind of sacrifice for the survival of the herd as a whole.
Besides protection herd animals come to the aid of an injured fellow. A bottle-nose dolphin in distress whistles and hearing this other dolphins come to his assistance. One on either side they help the injured one to come to the surface and keep him there until he recovers. It has been observed that dolphins do the same for human swimmers.
Elephant is well known for the help he renders to his wounded comrade. Hunter after hunter has told of seeing elephants coming to the aid of a wounded mate. In one case, it has been seen that about a dozen of members of a herd struggled hard to get a mortally wounded animal on his feet. Elephants rally round a sick friend to get him back on his feet. Even the young play nurse to a sick calf.
Food procurement:
Most seals and whales live in herds. They hunt together following schools of fish or octopus. The more plentiful the food the larger the herd becomes.
For lions the heavy work of finding prey is done by the lioness. She picks out a suitable position and her mate takes position upwind so that the prey gets the smell of him. The victim scenting an enemy moves away from the lion and comes closer to the lioness in ambush. The lioness kills with one swipe of her paw.
The experts in pack hunting are the cape-hunting dogs of Africa. A pack may have as many as sixty members. They chase their prey usually the antelope. The antelope often slashes back with sharp horns and hoofs and sometimes kills a dog or two. But there are many more. Sooner or later the antelope falls exhausted.
6. Herd Animals have High IQ:
It has been observed that herd animals are much quicker to learn tricks than solitary animals. The circus lions and tigers can only form pyramids and roar on cue. But elephants stand on their heads, play soccer, balance or balls.
Dolphins toss balls through basket-ball hoops. All these indicate that herd animals possess higher I. Q. than solitary animals. It is thought that herd animals regard the trainer as a member of their herd occupying the highest rank.
Social organization:
Association of individuals is the resultant outcome of random grouping that has ended in survival advantage. As example it may be cited that a herd of deer has a greater probability of detecting a predator. A group of insects is more apt to survive in a dry environment than a single insect because in a limited space each would lose less water as exposed surface would be less.
Such co-actions have been termed unconscious co-operation. This type of association may be asexually gregarious combining individuals without any respect to sex or it may be sexually gregarious-combining males and females together during reproductive seasons.
Active association for mutual benefit between individuals of same species often brings forth a social organisation. Success of these organisations is measured in terms of the survival of the colony. Survival at the individual level is given a secondary importance.
Social organisation has reached its zenith in social insects like ants, bees, wasps, termites, etc. In the social organisation of these insects there is much division of labour amongst the individuals of the colony. The king, queen, solider, worker, etc., are all morphologically and physiologically specialised. These specialisations are so rigid that the individuals can seldom survive outside the colony.