Cowabunga dude ! Crocodilians enjoy surfing , playing with jury-rigged toys , and drive piggyback rides from their buddy , concord to a newpaperpublished inAnimal Behavior and Cognitionlast calendar week .
Vladimir Dinets from the University of Tennesseehas spend over 3,000 hours observing crocodile communicating during mating time of year in the wild and in captivity , and in that metre , he ’s notice that crocs operate in play - similar behavior . Play is generally considered not functional for survival , intentional and voluntary , and ordinarily broach when the animal is unlax . To supplement his own watching , he conducted resume over societal media and at conferences to meet grounds , both anecdotic and from published reputation . He found 17 records of period of play in 10 metal money of crocodilians .
Behavior specialists have previously identify three independent eccentric of play : locomotor play ( related to motive power ) , toy with objects , and societal gambol . The one most frequently reported was bet with objects . Crocodilians have been spotted meet with wooden balls and ceramic fleck , bite streams of water system from sentimental pipes and hoses , and flip their dead prey items up in the strain . They also seem to be attract to float debris like leaf , feathers , and petals — especially pink ones . To the right wing is a crocodile meet with pinkish flowers . Zookeepers now often allow for various toy for crocs as part of their habitat enrichment curriculum .
As for locomotor looseness , it ’s no surprise that crocodilians seems to love adventurous water supply sports the good . youthful alligator have been interpret repeatedly slide down incline into water , while crocodiles surf ocean wave and caimans twit water stream in their pools .
discover cases of social play let in babe gator riding on the back of their older Quaker , baby caimans chase after each other in roach , and there was also a manful crocodile feed his lifespan mate drive on his back ( pictured above ) . what is more , they make for with other animals too , such as river otter and even people . In one rarefied model , a rescued American crocodile in Costa Rica bonded with a human for 20 age . Their playtime activities include Pocho the croc startling the human by of a sudden feign to attack him or by sneak up on him from behind , Dinets order in anews departure .
Dinet thinks that playing is a universal feature of speech of animal with complex and flexible behaviour . Understanding the behavior in crocs could help determine how intelligence evolves — and what ’s ask for its developing .
figure : Vladimir Dinets
