Comparative Psychology Commons^™

Social Learning In Juvenile Lemon Sharks, Negaprion Brevirostris, Tristan L. Guttridge, Sander Van Dijk, Eize Stamhuis, Jens Krause, Samuel Gruber, Culum Brown

Sentience Collection

Social learning is taxonomically widespread and can provide distinct behavioural advantages, such as in finding food or avoiding predators more efficiently. Although extensively studied in bony fishes, no such empirical evidence exists for cartilaginous fishes. Our aim in this study was to experimentally investigate the social learning capabilities of juvenile lemon sharks, Negaprion brevirostris. We designed a novel food task, where sharks were required to enter a start zone and subsequently make physical contact with a target in order to receive a food reward. Naive sharks were then able to interact with and observe (a) pre-trained sharks, that is, ‘demonstrators’, …