A thought on the nichelings...

[gyppygirl2021]

It seems, to me, that these animals have some limited degree of sentience. Admittedly, this is just speculation based off of observation (and knowing a bit about what the game was inspired by), but I think it's a reasonable enough assumption to make.

 

What are your thoughts?

[betwixted]

I agree. Minus player interaction that may give Nichelings sapient qualities (i.e. a player making a Nicheling not do anything for a turn to mourn for the dead, cooperative hunting, etc.), there are some behaviors Nichelings instinctively know how to do that points to this.

 

They can

• Form large social groups and
  
• Store large amounts of food to benefit all tribe members even without a seasonal cycle
  
• Tame baby Bearyenas  (I'm sure a non-player tribe has this same knowledge)
  

 

On each of their own, these behaviors not indicate sapience, as several animals display them. However, when put together, they can indicate some semblance of sapience. For example, mammals that often live together in social groups need to be smarter than your average bear to remember their social status, their role/duty, and relationships they have with species in the group. Storing food can also be an indicator, as it shows they know storing food has its advantages even when they don't have the risk of other people stealing the food in their storage or have to go through a long period without food be accessible.

 

Finally, there's taming Bearyenas. I italicized that because I believe that's one of the strongest indicators of sapience. While taming  can observed in other animals, such as ants taming aphids to farm them, few, if only one, species of mammal that tame other species for a select purpose, that of course being humans. Nichelings also display the ability to tame in game. Taming animals requires knowing the advantages of taming, learning how to tame, and what they can do with the tamed animal; in essence, a large amount of brain power is needed to tame an animal.

In the Nicheling's case, they probably know how to tame Bearyenas through observation rather than instinct, like ants. What type of animal would want to tame something that eats them, anyways? Anyways, they understand the advantages of having a predator on their side: protection from other predators, a hunting partner, and finally, mate.

All in all, that's why I agree, that Nichelings do display some degree of sapience.

[TamTroll]

i wouldn't say taming is a huge red flag, especially if you don't consider it taming.

 

Nichelings are a sort-of hybrid between canines and felines, both of which have been known to occasionally adopt members of other species in the past. One cyote worked together with a badger to hunt gophers, Cheetahs in zoos are sometimes given Dogs to help calm them down,  and heck, cats innitially approached humans as a cooperative source of food.

 

as well as other animal addoptions such as:

 

A tortoise adopting a baby hippo

Koko the Gorilla with her kitten

A pod of Sperm whaled adopting a deformed dolphin

A Macaque (a kind of monkey) adopting a stray kitten

A dalmatian adopting a spotted lamb

Monkey and a wild boar becoming best freinds

a housecat adopting a bunny

a Lioness adopting an Antelope calf as her own

Dog adopting an owl

and a cat adopting a squirrel.

 

you can find similar instances of animals adopting other animals all over. PLUS, given that you can only "tame" a Bearyena as a baby, it makes sense that the nichelings would adopt it, it's a child in need of help. AND, since Nichelings and Bearyenas are able to interbreed, it stands to reason that they are in some way related, distant cousins grown to hunt one another, so even while one becomes big and ferocious, there is still enough similarity between the two of them for one to mistake the other as a member of it's own kind.

 

so yeah, i wouldn't take taming / adopting as a huge sign of sentience really. and even gathering food for the group to eat could still be explained away as a game mechanic rather then what they really do. *shrugs*

 

[crystal5213]

Hm, that's a tough one. Considering the last two posts, I think it's tough to say the degree of their intelligence and sapience. If they truly tamed a bearyena, then that would be a strong indicator. If it was merely a symbiotic relationship, then that doesn't necessarily prove much. However, since the game uses the term "tame", my assumption would be that the niche critters are capable of taming.

 

Another thing that suggests a higher level of thinking is their adaptability. While many species are adaptable do different environments, nichelings can adapt their behaviors as well. For example, they will stay close together in the cold, team up to hunt prey, stay away from each other if sick, and behave differently to younger and older bearyenas. These are all things that an individual species may do, but like betwixted said the more of these traits you put together, the more likely that the species is displaying some level of higher thinking. Adapting behavior rather than physically is a huge part, from my observations, is what makes an intelligent species "smart". Most of my examples I have listed could also be attributed to instinct, but I do think they support my case nonetheless.

 

To conclude, I think that there really isn't enough information to make a strong decision either way. Which begs the question, if these creatures existed in real life, what experiments would we do to determine their intelligence?

[TamTroll]

By human definition at least, Tool use tends to be a good indicator of intelligence, if a creature is able to comprehend that an inanimate object outside of itself can be used to perform tasks it can not perform alone, then it's generally thought to achieved some level of understanding most animals don't. It was our use in tools that let humans as a species evolve to the intelligence we have after all.