2026/03/12 by Matthias‐Claudio Loretto, Kristina B. Beck, Douglas W. Smith +6 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Apex predator #Carrion #Ephemeral key #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Predation #Taphonomy #Ursus #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Wildlife-Road Interactions and Conservation
paper · doi:10.1126/science.adz9467
openalex publication_date 2026/03/12 · openalex created_date 2026/03/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Scavengers generally rely on patchily distributed, unpredictable carrion. A long-standing hypothesis suggests scavenging ravens reliably locate such food by directly following large carnivores to their kills. However, by satellite tracking 69 ravens, 20 wolves, and 11 cougars in Yellowstone National Park, we found that following of predators over large distances rarely occurred. Instead, ravens routinely revisited sites where wolf kills were common-returning from distances of up to 155 kilometers to find carrion. Much like navigating to permanent anthropogenic subsidies, ravens appear to remember potential sources of carrion shaped by previous encounters with wolves or their kills. These findings suggest that spatial memory and navigation play a considerably greater role than previously assumed among scavengers, and possibly other wide-ranging species, in search of ephemeral resources.