Why deceive?

To deceive someone is to trick them, it is to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Deception in animals may be behavioral, verbal/sound related, or physical/adaptive. No matter what the process, deception occurs with the incentive to benefit the “deceptor”- potentially with power, food access, and survival. Animals gave each other alarm calls to warn of predators, babies let their parents know they were hungry. Honesty benefited both the sender and the receiver. There was just one issue in this cheerful arrangement - It presented a great opportunity for liars.

Helen Shewman, of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, recalls that one day she dropped an orange through a feeding porthole for Meladi, one of the female orangutans. Instead of moving away, Meladi looked Helen in the eye and held out her hand. Thinking that the orange must have rolled off somewhere inaccessible, Helen gave her another one. When Meladi shuffled off Helen noticed that she had hidden the original orange in her other hand. Tawan, the colony's dominant male, watched this whole charade, and the next day he too looked Helen in the eye and pretended that he had not yet received an orange. "Are you sure you don't have one?" Helen asked. He continued to hold her gaze and held out his hand. Relenting, she gave him another, and then noticed that he had been hiding his orange under his foot the whole time.

Not only did Meladi comprehend tricking Shewman into giving her more food, but she also indirectly taught Tawan how to do the same. Meladi and Tawan quickly grasped the situation and changed their behavior to, in a dishonest approach, get more food. They deceived Shewman for their benefit, but where caught - something to avoid when being deceiving. If one deceits another and gets caught, that creates a negative base for the relationship. From then on the one being fooled starts catching on and will maintain a more cautious approach as to not be deceived that way again, if the tactic becomes too common, that will cause for the trick to no longer be as promising as others become more aware.

A croak, is how male green frogs tell other frogs how big they are. The bigger the male, the deeper the croak. The sound of a big male is enough to scare off other males from challenging him for his territory. While most croaks are honest, some are not. Some small males have learned to lower their voices to make themselves sound bigger. Their big-bodied croaks intimidate frogs that would naturally beat them in a fair fight. But why, for example, do green frogs keep believing that a big croak means a big male?  They aren’t all catching on, but some are adapting. Some of the male frogs sit quietly near the loud croaks and wait for an opportunity to intercept an interested female. They deceive the female into mating with them, when naturally she wouldn’t (since with natural selection she would try to only mate with the best candidate i.e. the one with the loudest croak). There is much creative deception in the wild.

Shrikes, for example, regularly use alarm calls to warn one another of predators. But sometimes the birds will use false alarm calls to scare other shrikes away from food. Imagine that a shrike fools other shrikes with a false alarm. It eats more, and therefore may hatch more babies. Meanwhile, the gullible, less-nourished shrikes hatch fewer babies. If false alarms become common, natural selection should favor shrikes that are not fooled by them.

An adaptive physical example of deception is the fox. The fox is a crafty and deceitful animal that never runs in a straight line, but only in circles. When it wants to catch birds to eat, the fox rolls in red mud so that it appears to be covered in blood. It then lies apparently lifeless; birds, deceived by the appearance of blood and thinking the fox to be dead, land on it and are immediately devoured.

The fox had learned how to change it’s physical appearance in a way to deceive it’s prey and allow for it to come to the fox without the fox doing much work. This is a very skillful action. The bird has no reason to suspect danger, just an easy carcass meal - and then it becomes the meal and has no ability to pass on it’s knowledge to other birds. However if many other birds witness this, then it will become more difficult to ween in the victims.

Deception occurs in animals and humans, with a similar purpose of achieving some form of a benefit. There are many purposes for deception, but if it becomes too common, others start catching on and the tactic becomes less promising. Deception can be used to benefit or to harm. As a whole, humans and animals are very trustworthy until they encounter deceit. Baby humans and animals are extremely vulnerable, and trust everyone. They then learn off their environments and adapt accordingly. Many babies learn to deceive by crying for attention, because they observed that when they cry, someone will approach them and either hold them or bond with them in another way. They then will cry not just when they are hungry or need to use the diaper, but when they want to have someone around.

Deception has been a part of survival since the beginning of life. It is in our best interest to try and learn how to depict it, or else we may all fall into someones deceit.

NOTE: There have been many different stories circulating about the tigress and piglet picture. To read more please visit   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-498789/The-tiger-adopted-litter-piglets-tale-porkies.html