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With regard to howling, for example, possible answers to the question: "Why do wolves howl?" have included: 1) to facilitate the reunion of pack members; 2) to advertise/defend a territory; 3) to find a mate; 4) to express an emotion (i.e., joy, loneliness, etc.); and 5) to strengthen social bonds among packmates. All the above may be legitimate explanations for howling, but they represent a confounding of proximate and ultimate causation. The first three can be reduced to two (attraction/repulsion) and represent the most likely selective forces responsible for the evolution of howling. The fourth represents a proximate cause, in this case the internal hormonal and neuronal mechanisms which stimulate a wolf to howl in an appropriate way in a specific context. The fifth, if it occurs, likely represents a non-adaptive consequence of the former: howling probably did not evolve to strengthen pack bonds, although it may have that beneficial consequence today as a byproduct of its evolved functions. Thus wolves that howl because they "enjoy" howling (proximate cause) may deter a neighboring pack from trespassing or may assist a packmate in returning home (ultimate causes).
That seems to indicate a stack of reasons that aren't reliant on the moon. From a symposium (how fucking cool is a WOLF SYMPOSIUM?) here. |
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