Can animals imagine things?

Have you ever stared into space, or just dreamt about tomorrow? It's fun to allow your imagination to wander. But can animals imagine things too?

Making plans

‘Absolutely!’ says Jorg Massen. He is doing research into animal behaviour at Utrecht University. ‘We can’t say for sure whether all animals can imagine things - there’s still a lot we don’t know. It takes a lot of careful research to even begin to answer that question. But in some species, scientists have found intriguing clues.’

We know, for example, that some animals are capable of thinking ahead. They make plans. And planning means picturing what might be coming next. That’s a pretty imaginative thing to do!

Eat now or store for later?

Consider this example. In a well-known study scientists had a pair of western scrub-jays spend the night alternately in two places. In the first place, the birds always got food for breakfast. In the second place, they never got breakfast.

Photo: YS courtesy of Unsplash

The scrub-jays were sometimes given extra food before sleep, which they could eat or store. The birds in the place where breakfast never came stored more food than the birds in the place where breakfast was always served.

So the birds were anticipating their future needs. They knew when they weren’t going to have breakfast and then saved more food so they wouldn’t go hungry. In other words, they ‘used their imagination’ to plan ahead!

How deep?

‘There are lots of different species that are capable of planning like this,’ Massen explains. 'But researchers still aren’t sure how those plans appear in the animals’ minds. No one knows for certain how deep animals’ thoughts go. But some animals clearly think ahead. That sounds a lot like imagining things to me.’

Answered by Rik Peters