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Study

Teaching in Wild Meerkats

Thornton, A.; McAuliffe, K.

Science, 2006

Peer-reviewedfield experimentwild

What they did

Adult meerkats provisioning pups with scorpions were observed, and the state of the prey recorded against pup age. Playbacks of younger and older pup calls were then used to test whether adults adjust what they hand over on the basis of the call alone.

Studied in
Suricata suricatta
Sample size
wild groups with pups of known age

What they found

Adults gave dead prey to the youngest pups, disabled prey to older ones, and finally live prey. Playing the call of an older pup to a group with young pups caused adults to deliver more live prey, and the reverse held.

What it means

The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.

How the authors put it

Adults modify their behaviour in the presence of naive pups, at a cost to themselves, in a way that accelerates the pups’ acquisition of a skill — which satisfies the functional definition of teaching.

How NatureHQ reads it

This is the cleanest case of animal teaching there is, and the reason is the playback. Adults grading prey by pup age could simply mean adults recognise their own pups’ age. Playing a call and watching the adults change what they hand over shows the adjustment is driven by a signal from the learner, which is the part that makes it teaching rather than an accident of provisioning. Note also what teaching means here: no intention is claimed and none is needed. The functional definition asks whether the teacher pays a cost and the learner learns faster, and both are measurable.

Limitations

  • The functional definition deliberately excludes any question of what the adult understands.
  • One species with an unusually specific dangerous-prey problem.
  • Whether pups would eventually learn as well without the graded provisioning is not directly measured.

The experiment, explained

  • Playing the call of an older pup, and watching the adults change the menu

    When adult meerkats grade the prey they give pups, are they teaching, or simply reacting to pups they recognise?

What this study is used for on NatureHQ

One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.

Finding the paper

Published by: American Association for the Advancement of SciencePublished in Science or Science Advances (AAAS).

doi.org/10.1126/science.1128727

Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.

NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-31.