 Dear students, in this topic we shall discuss social learning. Social learning is a type of learning that involves observing and copying others' behavior. For example, young monkeys or chimpanzees learn to crack palm nuts by copying the behavior of their elders. Dear students, social learning forms the root of culture. Culture is a system of information transfer through social learning or teaching that alters the behavioral phenotypes of individuals in a population. Culture enhances the fitness of individuals much rapidly because cultural-based changes in phenotypes occur on a much shorter time scale as compared to the changes which result from natural selection. Nature selection can take millions of years to change a phenotype, but culture can change it much rapidly. Dear students, the social learning behaviors are prevalent in animal kingdom, especially the vertebrates. They are of two major types – copying behaviors and fine-tuned social learning behaviors. We shall take an example of mate choice copying behavior. It is a form of social learning behavior which is demonstrated in several fishes, birds and mammals. In mate choice copy, individuals in a population copy the mate choice of others. When an individual copies the mate choice of another, a mate to which other mates are attracted, that shows the mate choice copy behavior, which means that the individual is more fit in reproductive means. Dear students, now we shall discuss the fine-tuned social learning. Fine-tuned social learning with experience in humans is well known. A human baby starts to learn expressive words and accents that modify and improve with age that is fine-tuning happens. Studies on vertebrate monkeys have demonstrated fine-tuned learning in other animals. Vervet monkeys produce a complex set of alarm calls. They give distinct alarm calls for predators like leopards, eagles or snakes. Alarm call for leopards is a load-parking sound. For eagles, a short double-syllable cuff is produced while for snakes, a chatter sound is produced. Upon hearing such alarm calls, other vertebrate monkeys behave in an appropriate way. For example, they run up a tree on hearing the alarm call for leopards. Similarly, they look up on the sky on hearing the call for an eagle. And they look down on hearing the alarm for a snake. The infant or young vertebrate monkeys also give and understand alarm calls but they do so in a relatively undiscriminating way. For example, they give eagle alarm on seeing any bird, with age, they fine-tune their calls by learning from other members of the group.