Achoo! African Wild Dogs Sneeze To Vote To Go On Hunts

Animal interaction is a complex area of study. Animating them is easy, just giving them a British accent does the trick. But, real animal interactions are complex.

Pack animals tend to interact more because of their way of life. Their day-to-day routines are group activities and they rely on each other for protection and security. Dogs display this better than most animals. Readily social, their interactions have fascinated man for thousands of years.

African wild dogs in Botswana are endangered animals. They look like miniature hyenas and pack a punch too. Scientists have noticed that members of a pack decide when to go hunting by sneezing to vote.

The study was conducted by a group of scientists studying wild dog behavior in Botswana in Africa. The study was to look for patterns in their hunting behavior and study the species in general. The study was aimed at finding out more about these endangered canine species and possibly understanding them to raise more awareness.

The research, by an international team working at the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust, is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

After an afternoon nap, scientists noticed that one member of the pack starts a rally to coerce the other dogs into going hunting. This ritual gets the dogs excited to get enough to move.

Scientists noticed that the rallies sometimes succeeded in getting the pack moving and sometimes it just died down and the dogs went back to sleep. Successful rallies seemed to have a lot more sneezing involved.

The pattern became evident on further observation that more sneezes were always prominent in successful rallies. This led the team to believe that the sneezes were some kind of affirmation in a voting process. Like the dogs were agreeing with the decision letting the pack know.

Author of the study Reena Walker, of Brown University in the U.S., says they identified another pattern in their behavior, where the alpha male and females’ reaction dictated the number of sneezes. If the alpha sneezed, the pack sneezed lesser, made up their mind faster and left. When the pack leader didn’t respond, more sneezes were needed to get the pack, up and running.

Scientists previously assumed that these sneezes did not have any significant meaning. It was thought to be a simple clearing of airways after a nap.

Andrew King, of Swansea University in the UK and co-author of the study, said: "The sneezes act as a type of quorum, and the sneezes have to reach a certain threshold before the group changes activity.”

He also added that the quorums are used by other social carnivores like meerkats. The behavior of the alpha vote influencing the pack differently and holding more weight is a sign that votes by members hold a different value based on pack position in African wild dogs.

The scientists hope that this study could prove that these animals are smart, unique and worth our efforts to help conserve an endangered species.