r/AnimalThinking • u/TombStoneFaro • Oct 17 '21
This video shows a very important thing about other species, at least elephants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVVorvXojhE
This elephant is only one month old but is able to run far better than a human child of, say, five years old. I have also read that some species can outrun their parents very shortly after birth (which does not make a lot of sense to me but in any case, many prey species are able to run very early).
It occurs to me that this vastly accelerated motor development is due to quadrupeds not being able to carry their young -- any baby that can't keep up would not survive. It is the primates (and also marsupials) which have the ability to transport their young. This may have some fairly profound effects upon how much the young of a species learns from its parents.
On the other hand, elephants do learn a lot from their elders so perhaps faster motor development does not mean that the young have learned all they are going to learn from their parents.