Food culture in seed-eating animals : self-learning or social-learning

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The Japanese squirrel(Sciurus lis) in lowland forests has a special feeding technique for quickly opening the walnut shell. However, squirrels living in coniferous forests without walnuts in their habitat did not have a proper feeding technique to open the walnuts shell. The effects of age on learning the feeding technique were examined, so that all individuals younger than one year were able to properly eat the walnuts but individuals older than 3 years were never. Consequently, the walnut feeding technique of the Japanese squirrel can be improved by learning at a young age.