Personality dictates social spiders' roles
By Zoe Gough
Reporter, BBC Nature
Social spiders' personalities determine the tasks they perform and the division of labour in their societies, new research has shown.
Females lack physical differences, instead they display either aggressive or docile behaviour.
Scientists observed how often each personality type participated in tasks like catching prey and parental care.
They showed clear links between personality, preference for specific tasks and proficiency at those tasks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/27832974
Yep. I do believe humans are remarkable for the complexity of our social interactions, but not "exceptional" in the sense of having something other animals lack. There's a continuum of "personality" stretching from animals like humans, dolphins, elephants, parrots, ravens, dogs... all the way out to animals like spiders.
For all we know plants have personalities too but we animals generally live too fast to perceive those patterns.
Like it or not, every living thing is an automaton or none of us are. I myself wouldn't want to be an automaton, so I do my best to extend that same consideration to my fellow living beings, respecting even the food I eat.
