Researchers are putting animals to the test in their native habitats by leaving puzzles and baits. So, how clever are our native animals?

A growing field of study is testing the problem-solving skills of animals in their native habitats; with entertaining results.

By leaving puzzles and bait in the wild, researchers are testing to see which animals can successfully move sliding panels or levers to receive food rewards.

While the research equipment may resemble pet toys, it isn’t just fun and games; researchers believe new findings can help improve our conservation efforts.

Puzzles a pushover for possums

Scientists from James Cook University and the University of Western Australia carried out a study in which puzzles and bait were left scattered across the national park, with cameras beside them.

“We were interested in looking at whether native animals have this ability to naturally solve problems, particularly in these arid environments where people don’t necessarily study animal behaviour,” James Cook University’s Misha Rowell said.

Loading…

Dryandra’s woodlands, 160 kilometres south-east of Perth, is home to a plethora of rare and endangered species, including bettongs, chuditch, quendas and antechinus as well as possums, skinks, kangaroos and echidnas.

Over the course of a month, 12 species were filmed near the puzzles, and while most investigated them, only two solved all three puzzles. They were the common brushtail possums (Koomal) and brush-tailed bettongs woylie), while a chuditch also solved one.

“It is very fun to go through the remote camera footage and watch the animals working their way through a puzzle,” UWA researcher Tash Harrison said.

It is the first time the behaviour has been seen in these animals, and the different strategies such as the use of their snouts and forelimbs, showed the behaviour wasn’t random.

Challenging times

While scientists have studied how animals solve problems in captivity for decades, more efforts are being made to study skills in the wild.

“Going out into these remote and rural areas and doing the study in a way where we’re not really disturbing them by catching them and bringing them back into a lab, just leaving them out in nature, that’s a relatively new technique,” Dr Rowell said.

Experts believe the information could help conservationists at a time when animals are facing rapid human-induced change.

Whether it’s facing an invasive predator or navigating a habitat it has been relocated to, the ability to solve problems could be a crucial skill for a species’ survival, experts suggest.

There are still many questions in the field to be answered, for instance how animals in captivity, or those living near urban areas, compare with those in the wild.

“Much of the existing work has been completed in captivity due to the complicated logistics of working with wild animals in the field,” Ms Harrison said.

“We can’t answer this question with the findings from our study but there may be a difference.”