Japan’s wild deer bow to tourists who approach them, but not out of politeness, because they have learned that bowing brings food

The sight has become one of Nara’s most famous tourist experiences: a visitor holds out a special deer cracker, dips their head, and a free-ranging sika deer appears to bow back. It can look like an extraordinary example of animals adopting Japanese etiquette, but researchers who studied the behavior found a more practical explanation. Nara’s deer appear to have developed the gesture through repeated interactions with humans, learning that bowing is associated with receiving food. Researchers tested deer in Nara Park and compared them with sika deer on Miyajima Island, where the same cracker-feeding tradition was absent at the time of the experiments. The difference was striking enough to suggest that the movement was not simply a universal behavior performed by sika deer everywhere.

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