If the chicken could fly.....

The question whether animals have culture is bit like whether chickens can fly. Compared to an albatross or falcon, perhaps not, but chickens do have wings, they do flap them, and they do get up in the trees. Imagine a world devoid of flying creatures except chicken: we would probably be mightily impressed, writing poems and songs almost how we wished to be like them.

Similarly, viewed from the towering cultural heights achieved by the human race in art, cuisine, science, and political institutions, other animals seem nowhere in sight. But what if we change perspective, and don't measure them by our standards? This is what Kinji Imanishi proposed in the early 1950s by defining culture, not by technical achievements or value system, but simply as a form of behavioral transmission that doesn't rest on genetics.~ Page 214