The study questions the idea that only species with complex social systems —like humans—can exhibit this behavior.
Scientists have found sun bears can precisely mimic each other’s facial expressions, in the first display of such behavior to be spotted in animals other than humans and gorillas.
Researchers studied 22 sun bears aged between 2 to 12 at the Borean Sun Bear Conservation Centre in Malaysia. The team filmed the animals as part of their investigation, which took place in enclosures large enough to allow the bears to isolate themselves or be as social as they pleased. While primates and animals like dogs imitate one another, researchers believe sun bears are the first discovered to so such levels of precision outside of humans and gorillas.
However, Terry told Newsweek the study was limited as it was not clear what the function of these expressions was. He suggested sun bears might copy expressions to signal they are ready to transition into rougher play, but said the data does not currently answer this question. “One possibility raised by the study is that sophisticated forms of communication might be more widely shared among mammalian species than previously thought, which indicates the widely held belief that complex communication is only present in species with complex social systems is not quite the whole story.
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