Chances are you have never played a card game with sloth bears, but researchers from a recent study on picture recognition have! Previous research has explored picture recognition in many animals from black bears, to lizards, and even fish. However, the cognitive abilities of bears, particularly sloth bears, are not completely understood. As a result, scientists set out to explore the processing of this information in two sloth bears: Niko and Remi.
Each bear played a food preference card game to test their communication abilities with two rounds. In round 1, Niko and Remi were each shown two cards: one card had one of their favorite foods while the other had one of their least preferred meals in another. If a card was selected, the caretakers gave this food to the sloth bears. Food cards that were selected by the bears through blowing, pawing, or nosing behaviors toward their preferred card. Niko loved mealworms, almonds, leafeater biscuits, raisins, prunes, and grapes, but he disliked butternut squash, turnip, banana, omnivore kibble, orange, and mango. Remi’s favorite treats were raisins, prunes, mealworms, pecans, brazil nuts, and cheerios, but she disliked honeydew, orange, omnivore kibble, broccoli, celery, and zucchini.
In order to score a full point, bears had to select their favorite food in five seconds from the card selection and eat the food when it was given to them. They received no points if they did not select a card and only half a point if they chose a food card they didn’t like and threw it out. In round 2, the same steps were repeated but with pictures the bears had never seen before with a wider selection of cards including three food cards. Interestingly, both Nicko and Remi successfully choose their preferred food items on the cards in 80% of the trials after 3 testing sessions in both round 1 and round 2 of the game. Nicko recognized the pictures instantly. On the other hand, Remi learned the skill after sessions of training. But what might this research with our friends Nicko and Remi reveal to their caretakers? This research not only builds understanding on cognition, but also may help animal caretakers in managing and caring for sloth bears and other similar animals in captivity by allowing them to make choices such as food preference.
