Abstract
Social learning has been shown to considerably facilitate the acquisition of information and has been as such typically studied in animals living in complex social groups. Comparably little is known about social learning in less gregarious species, notably when heterospecific demonstrators are used. Here, we investigated the capacity for social learning in two captive Harpy Eagles (Harpia harpyja) , a solitary raptor species characterised by long-term pair bonds and biparental care, typically forming stable breeding pairs rather than larger social groups. We exposed the eagles to human demonstrators manipulating nesting material and assessed behavioural responses. Our results show that subjects were highly attentive towards demonstrations, frequented the nest consistently more after demonstrations than before, and started performing novel behaviours with nest material after demonstrations that were never observed before. Our results add a new, less-social, bird species to the range of likely social learners in the animal kingdom and highlight the potential role of human demonstrators for the acquisition of novel behaviour.