Science Magazine: Antisocial tortoises learn from each other

Scientists have thought that the ability to learn from others evolved in step with communal living. Now a study demonstrates an exception: A solitary reptile is an adept social learner. In a study showing that when they could watch another, tortoise complete the task, red-footed tortoises quickly learned how to navigate a fence to get food. Louis Lefebvre, an animal behaviorist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, argues that "there's been evidence for a long time" against the hypothesis that learning from others is a novel ability that evolved separately from other types of learning. "Information in the environment is information in the environment, whether it's given to you by an animal" or not, he says. "This study confirms it in a nice way."

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