Hungry rats' following of conspecifics to food depends on the diets eaten by potential leaders

Rats, Rattus norvegicus, familiar with maze procedures reliably followed conspecific leaders in a maze. Rats trained to follow in a maze followed leaders that had eaten a food known to the follower to be safe, with higher probability than they followed leaders that had eaten a food known to the follower to be poisonous. Thus, rats have the capacity both to follow conspecifics to feeding sites and to choose conspecifics to follow on the basis of …