Swansea Uni study: African wild dogs 'sneeze to vote' (2017)

I had the thought that perhaps there's some sort of voting in flocks of migrating birds. I had this idea while listening to a flock of starlings make a tremendous amount of noise. It seems like a waste of precious calories to chirp and squawk so much, so surely there's some function to all the vocalizations. Listening closely, I found they were making only a few different varieties of calls. Perhaps they're saying something akin to "go left" or "go right"?

Given the extreme distances that some birds travel, it seems unlikely that each bird remembers the exact route, but maybe every bird remembers separate fragments. As a flock, they have a distributed memory of the whole migration path. They then vote on the best path by calling out constantly.

I looked a bit at the research, and it seems that they're probably using the sun/moon or magnetic fields to navigate. It's still a fun thought though.

I still wonder what's the purpose of the constant calling?

I've had 5 dogs over 45 years. All of them Shetland Sheepdogs. As long as I can remember, they have all tended to sneeze when they get excited about going outside.

If they detect I'm about to go out, they start campaigning to go with by jumping around in front of me while I'm walking around gathering up my shoes or whatever, showing a lot of excitement. It frequently culminates in one or two sneezes.

I have started to suspect that it means something.

somewhat related: if you've ever been playing with a dog (of the pet variety, not the wild variety hopefully) and they've sneezed, that's a social signal to show that the wrestling/fighting is playful and not malicious to prevent escalation.

"BBC Earth" "The Hunt" Season 1, Episode 1, "The Hardest Challenge" has phenomenal footage of African Wild Dog pack hunting. Available on BBC and Netflix

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036mymm

One question is whether the stress of decision making originally contributed to a weakened immune system and more general respiratory issues, not exclusively sneezing. In other words, did the process begin as "rough consensus and a runny nose"?

Next time you are on a plane, see how many people sneeze just after the plane lands.

Next steps in research: causing a pack to move by causing pack members to sneeze.

I wonder if flu or cold epidemics cause strategic damage as well as regular damage to packs, by making them sneeze en mass and mistake it for group consensus.

I've noticed my dog (black lab) doing similar behavior consistently in the mornings, also after she had her breakfast. She'll walk away from the kitchen and her dog bowl with her tail wagging and doing some kind of sneezing sniffing-sound, also when we come home from being out of the house she'll do it too.

It's cute as hell.

One of our shih-tzu's will sneeze/snort when he hears about something that he wants. Treat, outside, walk, etc.

I have some kind of terrier. She rarely barks. When any other dog would bark, she usually sneezes or snorts. So, for example, when it is time for her walk, she will snort at me and then run to the door.

original paper here

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2017...

So there's democracy in the animal kingdom

Is it a snort or a sneeze? I didn't know any being could sneeze of their own.