Camel got the hump? Grumpy animals are just feeling offended

ANIMALS fall into prolonged bad moods over minor slights in the same way as humans, scientists have found.

Birds, rats, fish – and everything in between – can be far less pragmatically minded than previously thought, according to a study that promises to transform the understanding of animal psychology.

Researchers have long assumed that an animal’s emotional state was dependent on achieving its core life goals – keeping safe, finding food and reproducing.

Now, however, a new analysis has found that it could be just as likely that a “gloomy” animal is suffering from what amounts to a lengthy strop provoked by an unrelated factor. The reverse is also true.

The team at Queen’s University Belfast gave the example of starlings with more comfortable nests than their neighbours appearing more upbeat. They also pointed to honeybees having a more pessimistic reaction to smells if they have previously received a fright.

The scientists drew on a theory of “contests” between animals – interactions where two or more organisms are competing for the same core advantage.

While the significance of any particular contest may be small, the outcome can affect an animal’s mood long-term, the study found. Andrew Crump, lead author of the paper, said: “Human emotion influences unrelated cognition and behaviour. For example, people rate their overall life satisfaction higher on sunny days than rainy days.

“We have found that animals’ emotions also influence unrelated cognition and behaviour. For example, animals that won a contest experienced a more positive mood and expected fewer predators in their environment.

“Similarly, animals that lost a contest experienced negative emotions and took part in less future contests. These carry-over effects may lead to maladaptive behaviour.

“Stimuli or events that elicit emotional responses might influence virtually any decision – potentially with life-or-death consequences.

“For example, are rustling leaves a predator or the wind? Anxious animals will probably interpret the rustling as a predator and run away.”

Emotions in animals can be measured empirically through changes to cognition, how much energy and drive a creature shows, and nervous system activity.

Dr Gareth Arnott, principal investigator on the paper, said that, currently, animal behaviour researchers typically do not consider animal emotions in their work. “The results of this study show that this may need to be considered as the role of animals’ emotion is crucial in relation to understanding their subsequent behaviour,” he said.

The study appears in the journal