Animal cultures: but of which kind?

The concept of animal culture began to be increasingly used in the context of animal behaviour research around the 1960s. In spite of its success, I shall argue that animal culture as it is currently conceived does not represent a fully articulated “natural kind”. But how does it fail in this regard and what consequences follow? Firstly, an analysis of the epistemological landscape of author keywords related to the concept of animal cultures is presented. I then systematically enumerate the ways in which culture cannot be considered a natural kind in the study of animal behaviour. Finally, a plausible interpretation of the scientific status of the animal culture concept is suggested that is congenial to both its well established use in animal behaviour research and its inferential limitations.