Animal behavior. Orangutans, like chimps, heed the cultural call of the collective

Do invertebrates have culture?

A recent paper in Current Biology1 showed for the first time that female invertebrates (Drosophila melanogaster) can perform mate choice copying. Here, we discuss how female mating preferences in this species may be transmitted culturally. If culture occurs in invertebrates, it may be a relatively ancient evolutionary process that may have contributed to the evolution of many different taxa. This would considerably broaden the taxonomic range of cultural processes and suggest the need to include cultural inheritance in all animals into the general theory of evolution.2-4.