Explaining Why Some Animals Like To Live Alone

Animals which live in groups experience reproductive competition and conflict, and so, some species resolve this problem by living alone.

Our closest relative, chimpanzees, with whom we share 99% of our DNA, live in a fission-fusion society; which means that the group's size and composition are fluid and change over time with merging of groups and splitting of the group occurring.

Chimpanzee groups also feature dominance hierarchies. But of course, there are benefits and costs of aggressive competition within a group. Male chimps will compete aggressively for positions in the social hierarchy. While, generally, female chimpanzees often emigrate to another community after reaching sexual maturity, entering the new group at a low level and waiting for senior high-ranking females die, so that they can rise in the hierarchy of the group. Other females chimps, however, are aggressive to immigrant females and they will kill the newborn infants of other chimp community members.

Of all of the species of animals in the world, humans and chimpanzees, are among the few who engage in coordinated attacks on the same species. Although chimps can exhibit selfless behaviours and even understand and mourn death, they also actively seek out to attack others, as do humans.

Human females cease being able to produce offspring midway through their life span, as do Killer whales. This means that a mother will be fertile for a relatively small part of her daughter's life. The reason for this low degree of reproductive overlap between generations is an evolutionary adaption which reduces reproductive competition between generations, giving the younger female an advantage in reproductive conflict with older females.

While the significant costs of reproductive competition and conflict are inevitable in group‐living species, some animals are more solitary, avoiding each other, except during mating, territorial encounters, or when raising young.

Solitary animals like polar bears, eagles, opossums, skunks, owls, tigers, cougars, pumas, armadillos, and orangutans, live in a solitary manner to avoid competition over food, space, mates and shelter. Such animals often exhibit a reduced need for bonding and attachment and less separation distress, but they tend to be are fiercely territorial.

Books To Read

Hour of the Wolf, is a steampunk novel written by Andrius Tapinas.