An eight-year-old boy installed hidden cameras in the forest, and his discovery surprised scientists

Interesting discoveries can be made not only by scientists, but also by children. This is exactly what happened in the US state of Arizona, where an 8-year-old schoolboy named Dante de Kort installed hidden cameras in the forest in order to observe the behavior of his favorite wild animals - collar bakers. What the boy managed to film was very surprising for the zoologists, since before this science the details of the behavior of the bakers were unknown.

Dante de Cort is very fond of animals, both domestic and wild. And so when at school he was given the task of preparing a project about his beloved animal, he happily set to work and decided to make material about the life of collar bakers. These animals are found in abundance in the forests of Arizona, so the boy wanted to supplement the project with his own video frames. The mother helped the schoolchild, who installed cameras with him.

Dante presented the resulting video materials and his research work on the life of collar bakers at a scientific exhibition. It was there that she was noticed by Marianna Altrichter, a biologist whose interests include the study of collar bakers. Marianna was surprised by the shots that the schoolboy managed to shoot, because they could be used to trace unusual behavior for bakers.

It turned out that these animals have more complex emotional behavior and are able to survive the bitterness of loss after the death of their relatives. The frames shot by Dante in the forest show how bakers come to the body of the deceased, try to stir him up, drive the coyotes away from him, and even stay overnight next to him. This struck Marianne Altrichter, as previously it was believed that bakers were not particularly emotional and not capable of displaying such deep feelings as compassion, pity or bitterness from losing a loved one. Prior to this, biologists believed that such behavior is characteristic of only a few species with a high level of social organization, such as dolphins or elephants.

Marianne Altrichter and Dante de Corte published several joint works and attracted the attention of the scientific community to the life of bakers. They hope that the new data will help change the negative attitude towards bakers that has developed in American society. The fact is that not all Americans love bakers as much as Dante de Cort from Arizona. These wild animals often wander into private estates, can spoil the decorative look of an emerald lawn or destroy the creations of landscape designers. They are considered stupid and of little value, so Dante hopes that his discovery will help to look at collar bakers from the other side.