It Turns Out That Animals In the Wild Love To Exercise



Could this little dormouse also enjoy a little wheel running? According to a Dutch study, animals in the wild frequently and voluntarily exercise. To prove their point, researchers placed a hamster wheel in a forest to determine whether exercising is inherent or a result of being in captivity. The cage was designed to exclude large animals and allow small animals free access. Every visit to the cage was recorded by a night-vision camera, and at night the camera relied on infrared light so as not to interfere with motion detection. The results showed that while mice were by far the most common animals to use the wheel, it was also used by shrews, rats, snails, slugs and frogs. Birds were seen accessing the wheel, but were never recorded actually running on it. The data concluded that animals exercise freely in the wild, making the voluntary choice to exercise.