Meerkats Observed Teaching Young to Hunt

Meerkats actively teach their young how to catch and eat their prey, British researchers reported Friday in the journal Science.

Animals are known to learn from one another by watching, but the team at the University of Cambridge said they had demonstrated for the first time that the meerkats actually teach. Older meerkats, for instance, will bite the stinger off a live scorpion and give the prey to a youngster to kill and eat. If the pup fails to do the job before the scorpion can crawl away, the adult will nudge it back.

Older meerkats -- not necessarily the parents -- will monitor the youngsters to see how they are doing