Owing to the ecological overlap of many species, it makes sense that such heterospecific social learning is common, and in some cases, information from another species may be more profitable than that provided by members of the same species. Here, we review the existing literature about learning from individuals of different species. We discuss the cognitive mechanisms underlying this form of information gathering and highlight the importance of past experience and

innate predispositions in the formation CAL-101 molecular weight of interspecific learning events. In many cases, seemingly complex forms of ‘copying’ from members of other species can be explained by relatively simple forms of conditioning. I saw several humble-bees … visiting these flowers … cutting with their mandibles holes through the under side of Temsirolimus the calyx and thus sucking the nectar … and the humble-bees were thus saved much trouble in sucking. The very next day I found all the hive-bees, without exception, sucking through the holes which had been made by the humblebees … I must think that the hive-bees either saw the humble-bees

cutting the holes and understood what they were doing and immediately profited by their labour; or that they merely imitated the humble-bees after they cut the holes …’ Charles Darwin quoted in Romanes (1883, pp. 220–221) should this be verified, it will … be a very instructive case of acquired knowledge in insects. We should be astonished did one genus

of monkeys adopt from another a particular manner of opening hard-shelled fruit; how much more so ought we to be in a tribe of insects … so pre-eminent for their instinctive faculties, which are generally supposed to be in inverse ratio to the intellectual!’ Charles Darwin (1841, p. 301) Animals are surrounded by a variable and complex environment in which they have to exhibit the appropriate behaviour to succeed in getting food, finding the best habitat not or avoiding predation. Animals often share the same needs and problems with other individuals. Thus, in addition to gathering information personally by costly trial-and-error strategies, an individual can rely on information previously sampled by conspecifics regarding the quality of alternatives when deciding from what and where to feed, where to live or from whom to escape (Danchin et al., 2004; Galef & Laland, 2005; Grüter, Leadbeater & Ratnieks, 2010). Such social learning is widespread in the animal kingdom, from insects to mammals (Freeberg, 2000; Galef & Giraldeau, 2001; Brown & Laland, 2003; Leadbeater & Chittka, 2007). It can be defined as the use of social cues, often inadvertently left by other animals engaged in making choices between various options (Heyes, 1994; Danchin et al., 2004; Dall et al., 2005; Leadbeater & Chittka, 2007). However, the use of socially acquired information should be regulated by adaptive strategies concerning when to copy and from whom (Laland, 2004).