Hoarding behaviors predate humans, having evolved as survival strategies among animals. In the wild, both larder hoarding and scatter hoarding have been observed, reflecting different cognitive skills needed for each strategy. For instance, gray squirrels display scatter hoarding by burying acorns in multiple locations and utilizing memory to retrieve them. They can remember around 80% of these caches, demonstrating an impressive ability to navigate using their hippocampus, which changes size seasonally according to their hoarding activity. Other species also exhibit similar hoarding strategies, indicating a widespread evolutionary trait across various animal classes.
Long before our population began stockpiling an almost unimaginable array of items, animals evolved similar behaviors, though possibly for different reasons.
Across the animal kingdom, hoarding has evolved as a survival strategy, shaped by the pressures of natural selection.
Different Kinds of Hoarding Scientists distinguish between two primary forms of animal hoarding: larder hoarding (storing everything in one central place) and scatter hoarding (dispersing caches across multiple sites).
Gray squirrels remember the locations of up to 80 percent of their caches. Their hippocampus, the brain region associated with memory and navigation, expands during the caching season and shrinks once the task is completed.
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