From tigers to cheetahs, big cats may appear majestically aloof, but researchers have found they can distinguish familiar and unfamiliar human voices, suggesting that even animals that avoid group living are far from socially inept.
While cats are often portrayed as somewhat deviant, researchers have previously found that domestic cats can distinguish the voice of their owner from that of other people.
Now researchers have found the pets’ exotic cousins, including tigers, cheetahs and cougars, also have an ear for different tones – at least when they live in captivity.
Prof Jennifer Vonk, from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, who co-authored the research, said the findings may reflect the need for such animals in the wild to identify their own cubs and monitor who may be in their environment. be. She said the skill could also help them pay attention to alarm calls from other species.
“We should not just assume that sociality is only about group life and that only group life is important for cognition,” she said.
Writing in the journal PeerJ, Vonk and colleagues report how they studied lions, cheetahs, snow leopards, servals and other exotic cat species that lived in captive environments such as zoos, sanctuaries and nature reserves.
After an initial pilot study involving seven cats from five species, the team conducted a larger study with 24 cats from 10 species, 16 of which were hand-raised by humans and eight were raised by their own mother.
Each cat was exposed to audio recordings of three unfamiliar people speaking the same phrase – “Good morning, how are you today?” – followed by a recording of the same phrase in a familiar voice, for example that of the animal’s caretaker. A final, fifth recording featured another unknown voice repeating the phrase.
The process was then repeated with recordings of the same people, but this time with the name of the exotic cat.
The team recorded and analyzed the cats’ reactions and behavior in response to each playback – such as a shift in gaze, head movement, moving towards or away from the sound, or vocalizations such as hissing or growling.
The results show that regardless of gender and whether the cats were hand- or mother-raised, they responded much faster, for longer and with greater intensity to the familiar human voice than to the four unfamiliar voices.
The results held even when lions – the only wild cat known to live in large social groups – were excluded from the analysis. The inclusion or omission of the cats’ names in the phrases made little difference.
“I was surprised that the results were as clear as they were,” said Vonk.
The team say the results also suggest that the ability to tune in to individual human voices is not a result of domestication, but simply due to regular exposure to humans, with Vonk claiming similar results are likely in cats. nature will be found – provided they hear the same human voices often enough.
However, the study has limitations, including that the small sample size meant the team could not separate results by species, as all the cats were housed in captivity, with most raised there.
“I think it’s interesting for the public to think that even non-domestic cats register who cares for them,” said Vonk. “This suggests that they may not be as aloof and indifferent as they are sometimes given the reputation for.”
