Here we use the term ‘cultural phenomena’ to refer to processes whereby behaviors are inherited across generations via social influences on learning. We focus on (1) traditions, which are group-specific behavioral patterns that remain stable over time, and (2) cumulative cultural change, which describes cultural change across generations that allows individuals to achieve phenotypes that they could not achieve within their lifetime through asocial learning. Traditions have been identified in various animal species, including fish [6, 7], capuchin monkeys , great apes [9–11] and cetaceans . In contrast, cumulative cultural change is generally considered in the context of technical skills and is widely considered to be uniquely human [4, 13].