Can animals be truly selfless?

Altruism

What is altruism?

“altruism refers to behaviour by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor.”

Vampire Bats

Females share blood with one another

Warning Calls

Alerts others to predators but also to themselves

Eusociality in bees

Why is being selfless weird?

What is the goal of survival?To pass on your genes?

Or to continue your species?

Food sharing

Reciprocal Altruism

Alarm Calls

Why?

Kin Selection

Protects those that are related to you

Great tits

Fake calls to scare larger birds from the food

Topis

Fake calls for mating

White Tail Deer

Nope! It tells the predator that it’s been spotted

Eusociality has to be altruistic!

Not Necessarily…

It might be forced equality

Where rebellers or selfish bees are punished/killed

So…What does it mean to be selfless?

END

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/

Bell, Graham (2008). Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 367–368. ISBN 0-19-856972-6.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151117-vampire-bats-blood-food-science-animals/

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347208003400

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1533/3169#sec-8