Orang utans are gentle creatures but they’re not above being cunning about food. — Freepik
The more we watch animals, the more we learn about their complex lives. Here are three famous examples of animal deception.
The killdeer is a plover bird found in the Americas living on shorelines. It builds its nest on the ground, hiding it’s speckled eggs among stones, driftwood and vegetation.
When a predator comes along, like a gull or cat, the killdeer pops us, beak open as if it’s exhausted and walking away from the nest. If the predator doesn’t follow, the killdeer spreads its wings and pretends one is broken.
It lures the predator away, acting vulnerable and only flying away when the predator is well away from the nest.
Orang utans are gentle creatures but they’re not above being cunning about food. When out foraging, they may cover a find of a particularly good bunch of bananas with a leaf, pretending to their friends they haven’t found anything good.
Then they move away and while their friends are looking elsewhere, they circle back, remove the leaf and feast secretly.
Orang utans are also masters of distraction, smiling nicely at researchers while they’re stealing their food out of their rucksacks.
In the ocean, octopi are known for their intelligence. They often hide in shells, behind coral reefs and even bigger sea animals to evade a predator.
Like the killdeer, an octopus may also swim erratically, or let its tentacles hang listlessly as though it’s ill. This pretense of illness can persuade a predator to swim past because who wants to eat a sick lunch?
