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Hi gang,
I want to talk a bit about avian intelligence.
As a bird lover and avian rehabber I have seen first hand the amazing intellectual capabilities inherent in many bird species.
Up until recently science had considered birds to be uninteligent, due to a misunderstanding in the difference bertween mammal and avian brains.
In mammals the seat of intelligence has long been thought to be the cerbral cortex, since birds do not have a neo cortex it was considered that there behaviour was largely instinctual.
It turns out though that in the avian brain there is another region altogether that is equivalent to the neo cortex in mammals, and this where, it is believed, lies the inteligence of birds. Comparatively this region is also larger than the neo cortex in mammals.
One of the most remarkable displays of this intelligent in birds has come recently from a crow. The crow was repeatedly observed altering a wire by spontaneously bending it in an effort to retrieve a small bucket of food.
Whats even more intresting is that this ability has even surpassed that of chimpanzees which although have been observed using sticks as a tool to retrieve termites, did not display tool making.The crows showed the ability to alter the tool creatively.
You can see this amazing video here for your self..
www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/crow/
There is a lot more out there, including the amazing abilities of Alex the african grey who had displayed cognitive abilities comparable to three year old children
Myself, I have witnesed crows displaying would may be considered altruistic behaviour, by bringing food to their injured comrades and guarding them for days. Even atacking me when I went to rescue them for rehab.
Again, none of this will come as a suprise to bird lovers and owners, but it is nice to see science finally catching up...
Love N Light ~ Pixie
I want to talk a bit about avian intelligence.
As a bird lover and avian rehabber I have seen first hand the amazing intellectual capabilities inherent in many bird species.
Up until recently science had considered birds to be uninteligent, due to a misunderstanding in the difference bertween mammal and avian brains.
In mammals the seat of intelligence has long been thought to be the cerbral cortex, since birds do not have a neo cortex it was considered that there behaviour was largely instinctual.
It turns out though that in the avian brain there is another region altogether that is equivalent to the neo cortex in mammals, and this where, it is believed, lies the inteligence of birds. Comparatively this region is also larger than the neo cortex in mammals.
One of the most remarkable displays of this intelligent in birds has come recently from a crow. The crow was repeatedly observed altering a wire by spontaneously bending it in an effort to retrieve a small bucket of food.
Whats even more intresting is that this ability has even surpassed that of chimpanzees which although have been observed using sticks as a tool to retrieve termites, did not display tool making.The crows showed the ability to alter the tool creatively.
You can see this amazing video here for your self..
www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/crow/
There is a lot more out there, including the amazing abilities of Alex the african grey who had displayed cognitive abilities comparable to three year old children
Myself, I have witnesed crows displaying would may be considered altruistic behaviour, by bringing food to their injured comrades and guarding them for days. Even atacking me when I went to rescue them for rehab.
Again, none of this will come as a suprise to bird lovers and owners, but it is nice to see science finally catching up...
Love N Light ~ Pixie
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Sun, October 30, 2005 - 5:24 PMThis is a subject that always bothers me. First off, I do not believe in the idea that anything is inherently smarter than anything else as a species. I have seen people that weren't as smart as some Irish Setters! And don't get me wrong, most Irish Setters I have met have been a little daft in my opinion. However it brings about the same issue that science has struggled with since science became a study.
Do animals think?
I believe they do, but I also believe that non-human animals cannot be measured intellectually the way we measure humans. That is like trying to gauge reactions of a bird to certain stimulli using commonly known behavioural reactions of cats! Absurd!
What it boils down to is this:
I firmly believe that there are different levels of intelligence not only per species, but per individual. I theorize that the more intelligent of a species teaches itself things to make it's life easier or safer and that the lesser intelligent of the species either adopt those techiniques or perish. Many people who like crows have KNOWN for centuries that they are highly intelligent. Can they measure that intelligence using human models? I think that is not only fallible but egotistic. I also believe that not all birds are highly intelligent, but that most do in fact think some things through, albeit in birdy ways.
If the vast majority of scientists could get off their high horses and start a research into non-human intellect without the bias and predetermined diagnosis that those subjects don't in fact think, we may seem some real headway. Those ethologists who are trying to prove non-human intellect have a hard road to travel, and it's not easy when the vast majority of the public ones are considered hippies and laughed at by "mainstream" behaviourists. Eventually, science will win out, but in the meantime, we have to endure a lot of ribbing.
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Sun, October 30, 2005 - 8:08 PMYeesh, just look at how the intelligience and language work with PRIMATES is ignored by the public, philosophers, and even other scientists, so little wonder avian intelligence is still neglected.
Thanks for vid link! I certainly hope you're familiar with Konrad Lorenz' work with birds, notably greylag geese. Check out this photo of him on the cover of one of his books:
www.amazon.com/gp/reader/...reader-link
Ciao and thanks for the vid!
- Lorne -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Sun, October 30, 2005 - 9:30 PMLorne
Yes, I am familar with Konrads work..he is a pioneer.
Another great one is Birds as Individuals..forget the name though of author.
As far as primates go though...it seems that is where most of the research IS conducted , more than anything else.
I do find the sign language work fascinating with primates. ~ Pixie -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Sat, November 5, 2005 - 5:54 PMI agree with Wendy. What is the point of this field of research? To determine that animals are intelligent? Will we ever have enough support for this claim to sway the disbelievers? There will always be people that think humans are more intelligent than animals, no matter what scientists say.
As far as intelligence work with primates: the purpose behind it is to determine the underlying difference between humans and apes. If people could just accept that apes have their own form of intelligence and deserve respect then studies like these wouldn't be necessary. Still, scientists attempt to find the definitive thing that separates us.
Maybe the sign language studies with apes have afforded more respect to primates. But it is at the cost of the individual. For example, Koko is one messed up gorilla who thinks she is a human. Should we really put much confidence in the studies generated by Penny Patterson with a subject of one? Same goes for the studies by Irene Pepperberg.
I don't have all the answers, but I'm not sure that intelligence research comparing animals to humans is the right way to go.
Okay, off my soapbox now! -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Mon, November 7, 2005 - 5:59 AMNot comparing animals to humans, but rather comparing animals to each other, is the right way to go - humans are just in the mix. A proper comparative approach will show the unique abilites of each species while illuminating our commonalities, hopefully in the process increasing our appreciation for them, and helping to motivate our culture to treat them as the sentient beings they are.
Ciao!
- Lorne
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Tue, June 20, 2006 - 11:58 PMWhy is Koko necessarily "messed up" because she's been raised in a human culture? Why do you assume that gorillas should remain at a gathering level of technology, if they are intellectually capable of participating in our culture at some level? You're making the implicit assumption that, as an animal, gorillas must naturally live as they originally evolved, without any technology more advanced than the shelters they build at night -- but by that logic _we_ should be roaming the Serengetti trying to run down antelopes or hijack carcasses from other scavengers.
If _wolves_ (as "dogs") can be our symbionts, why not gorillas, who are our close cousins? Might we not someday achieve a true multispecies civilization, to the benefit of all species participating?
Dr. Patterson's results aren't entirely based on her success with Koko. She also achieved some success with Michael and Ndume, though Ndume in particular (having been added to the project when he was almost full brown) has found it difficult to learn signs (he is, however, quite capable of learning to do mechanical puzzles, which tests for a different aptitude. There's also no reason why, in time, more gorillas cannot be added to the experiment (indeed, one major point of adding Michael and then, after his death, adding Ndume is in hopes of producing more gorillas in the project, by the most natural means imaginable).
As for "cost to the individual," Koko has so far enjoyed a much physically softer, emotionally fulfilling, intellectually richer, and historically meaningful life than she could possibly have experienced living either as part of a primal gorilla band or as an exhibit in the San Francisco Zoo. She may or may not succeed in becoming a mother and thus reproducing genetically, but she has been wildly more memetically successful than any gorilla in the history of her kind.
We _have_ to compare animals to humans as a starting point in intelligence research, because we know more about how our own brains work than how any other species' brains work. And the analogy is very close with gorillas, who are after all only about 8-10 million years separated from our own kind. Koko perceives the world through essentially the same sensoria as we do, and with the exception of syntax processing, with basically a smaller version of the same brain that we have. It's not as if she's as alien as (say) a dolphin or a parrot.
Apes may "have their own form of intelligence," but it is one closely allied to ours, and for a very good reason -- _we ARE apes_. We're just the ape that specialized in hunting by throwing rocks and found in it the royal road to increased brain capacity. And one of the main points of cognitive studies with apes and with animals in general is to find out what in "intelligence" is universal and what is unique to our own species, qualitatively speaking.
Being able to communicate with one ape of a species tells us that the whole species can be potentially communicated with. This is the first step towards mending the gap between Man and the other animals -- I think this is a noble project.
- Jordan -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Wed, August 16, 2006 - 5:58 AMMostly I agree with you, but Koko is messed up.
She had a real problem interacting with others of her species. Im not saying if she has a good or bad life, but while I am fastinate with her . and am impressed with both her puns and her poetry, she does have social problems. -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Mon, August 21, 2006 - 7:47 AMWell, Koko was one of the _first_ nonhuman great apes, and _the first gorilla_ to be fully acculturated. Penny Patterson is a genius but she was breaking new ground here. It was inevitable that she would make some mistakes. And in that respect, unfortunately it is Koko who has paid some emotional prices for being the first of her kind to learn a human language.
Also, Dr. Patterson did not have complete control over Koko's fate at the very beginning. To begin with, her original concept was a short-term experiment, with Koko being owned (remember, she is in law chattel property, not a "person") by the zoo. It is to Penny's great credit that, when she recognized just how smart Koko was and how much Koko loved her, that she was able to make the intellectual leap and realize that she could not abandon Koko.
This is relevant because, as is obvious from _The Eductation of Koko_, academic-political and financial difficulties led to Dr. Patterson being forced at one point to be returned to the zoo to be exhibited, just like any "normal animal." Koko's treatment by the zoo amounted sometimes to unintentional cruelty -- for instance, they wouldn't let Koko wear a sweater in cold weather because gorillas in the wild don't wear sweaters -- never mind that Koko was in a colder climate than would be a normal environment for her species, and never mind that Koko had become accustomed to wearing a sweater in cold weather. It took a major financial effort by Dr. Patterson to buy Koko from the zoo so that she could be taken care of properly.
At another point, the university backing Dr. Patterson withdrew their support under the theory that Koko (now near-adult) was a "dangerous animal." This necessitated more financial efforts, and Penny came close to having to give up Koko.
I do not know how much of this Koko understood, but she must have felt abandoned especially when she was returned to the zoo, and I am fairly sure based on the reports of her emotional intelligence that she sensed the fear and tension in the human members of the project -- especially in Penny, whom Koko clearly regards as an adopted mother. This certainly had some bad effects on Koko's emotional development.
It should also be remembered that, partially for financial reasons, Koko has lived with far fewer gorillas than would be normal for her kind in the wild. I believe that at its largest, the gorillas in her group only consisted of herself, Michael and Ndume. This ratio -- two males to one female, is also abnormal for gorillakind. Michael died back in 2000, and I believe that right now the Gorilla Project has only Koko and Ndume.
Most of the people in her environment, and certainly the most dominant ones, have been humans rather than gorillas. This is probably why she has tended to get crushes on human males (which, even if their consumnation were acceptable in our society would not accomplish her goal of having a baby). It is normal for gorilla females to be attracted to dominant males, even more so than is the case with human females.
If you're talking about the "nipples" thing, I think that comes from the fact that Koko very much wants to become a mother, and is aware of the connection between nipples and babies. Her fixation is a bit odd, but then again Koko (as the first-ever Ameslan-signing gorilla) is in rather an odd position.
I'm not sure how the acculturation of gorillas could have been better handled, really. Such acculturation is necessary, if gorillas are not to face a future of being either (a) property, or (b) extinct. I'd _like_ to see gorillas have a real role in a common future with humans and the other great apes, and for this to happen, we and gorillas have to learn some common language. And for gorillas to have their essential rights as people, rather than non-sapient property, be acknowledged, research into gorilla cogition is absolutely essential.
Dr. Patterson did the best that she could -- I wouldn't blame her for failure to be omnipotent and omniscient. She's only a human being, not a goddess.
Her work may just wind up saving Koko's whole species.
- Jordan
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Tue, June 20, 2006 - 9:06 AMOne of the most wonderful discoveries of my lifetime has been the sapience of the other great apes, and of many other mammals and avians beyond. Humans really AREN'T alone in the Universe ... we have fellow sapients here, on our very own planet. There are Others who, with enough patience, we can learn to understand and gain a fresh perspective on life from -- perhaps, in time, even join with us in the great work of civilization.
And one of the saddest discoveries of my lifetime has been just how little difference this makes to most people. Even _scientists_ tie themselves into logical knots trying to explain away Koko's signings or Alex's vocalizations as "merely imitative" behavior (as if human infants invented languages out of whole cloth!), and most of the public seems to consider them merely cute tricks.
In Africa, we are still slaughtering the great apes -- mopping up those of our kin whom we missed in the human-driven extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene. Bonobos, it turns out, are our _close_ cousins (we interbred with them _after_ sub-speciating away from them), and there are a few thousand to tens of thousands of them left alive -- less every year. There are less than a million great apes of _all_ species on the face of the Earth.
Do you realize that we have never had the chance to scientifically study bonobos, chimps, or gorillas _not_ under genocidal stress? These are _cultural_ creatures: and their cultures are being torn apart and trampled underfoot by our predations. What are we losing, never to be regained? We may be able to breed them back, especially given advanced genetic engineering, but cultures are not found in the genetic code.
To paraphrase Treebeard vis. Saruman, "A civilized species should know better."
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Sun, October 30, 2005 - 9:26 PMWendy,
LOL, I can see this is a subject that does bother you...
The way I see it there are a few issues involved here.
One, is our assumption that the human animal is the pinacle of evolution, and therefore only if an animals cognitive proceses are comparable to those of humans are they then considered to be "intelligent."
The other issue of course, is that we really do not have any other models to judge intelligence by besides our own. I mean, we are not cats, Irish setters, or birds. We have a hard enough time trying to understand the world through the eyes of another person, let alone a whole different species.
That is not to say that we should not continue to be as objective as possible, but we are limited to a certain extent by our very nature.
I agree whole heartedly that there are many different types of intelligence each perfect for the partciular species, with one type no better than the others.
Please understnad that when I refered to birds being more "intelligent" than other animals, that was not a value judgement, but rather just that their understanding seems to be more similar to our type of intelligence than was previously thought.
Regaurdless of all that, to me it is very exciting to see what I have always known being confirmed...that we are actually less differences between some species than we realize.
True, not all bird species are what would commonly be considered "highly intelligent" but many, many more than one would think are.
Take hummingbirds for instance, a species which I have considerable experience with...this is a bird that is very smart, though most would not think so. They learn faster than any bird I know of.
Starlings are another, of which I have trained many for free flight and have two that live with me now. They pick things up so quickly .
"If the vast majority of scientists could get off their high horses and start a research into non-human intellect without the bias and predetermined diagnosis that those subjects don't in fact think, we may seem some real headway. "
It's true so many live under the threat of being labeled with the dreaded ...gasp...groan... A word...anthropomorphic..
Love N Light ~ Pixie
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Wed, November 9, 2005 - 7:19 PM"Whats even more intresting is that this ability has even surpassed that of chimpanzees which although have been observed using sticks as a tool to retrieve termites, did not display tool making.The crows showed the ability to alter the tool creativel"
Sorry to nitpick, but I work with and have unbounded love and respect for chimps and gorillas and have seen both species not only using sticks but altering them (stripping bark, breaking into smaller pieces) creatively to suit their needs. I won't even go into watching one draw with a crayon, play with clothes, enjoy magazines and on and on.
Working with all differing species, birds to apes, has shown me that all animals, including us, are intelligent in their own way, and I stopped comparing that intelligence to mine and other animals a long time ago. -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Wed, November 23, 2005 - 7:04 AMBravo Peeps!
Now we are actually talking, discussing, conversing! This is what this tribe is all about! Keep it coming folks, I wanna hear more thoughts!
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Thu, November 24, 2005 - 4:03 PMI am not sure that striping the bark off sticks is the same thing as actualy spontaneoulsy bending a wire to to be used as a hook...sorry to nitpick....but it is also true that chimps and their cousins are equaly as amazing.
It seems to be unanimous here that each species has it's own individual, specialized form of intelligence that helps them function effectively in their enviroment.
All I was saying is that for so, so long birds have gotten a huge amount of disrespect in regaurds to what they are capable of intelectualy, more so than any animal...and to me it is exciting that those old ideas are changing...based not only on observable behavious but also on newly discovered differences in brain anatomy !
Fascinating !!
~ Pixie
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Wed, January 11, 2006 - 9:49 PMI agree, I am more intelligent than ANY mammall....
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Tue, June 20, 2006 - 8:57 AM
Chimps actually do make tools (they will prune the sticks before use), but otherwise I strongly agree with your point.
The interesting thing about this is that the brains of birds are generally smaller in proportion to their bodies (adjusted for absolute size) than the brains of mammals of _equivalent_ intelligence. What this implies is that avian brains are _more efficient_ than mammalian brains, in general.
One very interesting further implication of this concerns dinosaurs. The smartest dinos of the late Cretaceous had brains that, if they were organized like mammalian ones, would have put them at roughly canid levels of intellect. But -- if they were instead organized more like avian ones -- very possible since avians are descended from dinosaurs -- then they may have been about as smart as monkeys, or even apes, instead.
The Dinosaur Killer may have prevented the emergence of civilization on Earth tens of millions of years earlier than our own. If the troodons and other brainy maniraptorians were of ape-level intellect, then they _were_ sapient -- as our current experiments with apes have revealed.
WE wouldn't have been here but for the Dinosaur Killer, but oh, what might have been ... -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Tue, July 18, 2006 - 10:54 AMI was happily surprised when I read Temple Graham's accounts of bird intelligence in her book Animals in Translation. I didn't think birds were stupid to begin with, but when I read the story where Alex shows he can spell while the researchers are still going over and over the concept of phonemes, I literally laughed out loud.
I'm not a fan of the "pinnacle of evolution" idea. Why should evolution have a pinnacle? Why couldn't several different kinds of highly evolved but differently limited beings exist at the same time? We can walk and run and participate in human society, and a tree can't do any of those things. But we can't absorb water and nutrients into our bodies directly from the ground, we can't make sunlight into food, and we can't live hundreds of years keeping a record of every year stored in our body tissue. For me the question is not who is more intelligent but how can humans avoid ruining the ecosystems that keep us alive. -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Tue, July 18, 2006 - 10:56 PMMarianimal said:
> I didn't think birds were stupid to begin with, but when I read the story where Alex shows he can spell while the researchers are still going over and over the concept of phonemes, I literally laughed out loud. <
Me too.
The fact that Alex could grasp something like that _before_ it had formally been presented to him speaks volumes for his intelligence. Consider this: human writing systems were designed for the smartest of the great apes, a primate mammal. Alex's ancestors and ours diverged some 300 million years ago. Yet he was able to comprehend OUR writing system -- one probably suboptimal for his own senses and instictive shape recognition hardware.
Yet, as far as I know, _no_ nonhuman primate has learned to read anything but very simplified symbol-sets (Kanzi the bonobo and his family can communicate in this manner). This implies that African grays are at _least_ as smart as the great apes -- possibly, as smart as humans.
> I'm not a fan of the "pinnacle of evolution" idea. Why should evolution have a pinnacle? Why couldn't several different kinds of highly evolved but differently limited beings exist at the same time? <
Exactly. Not only that, wouldn't a civilization composed of _several_ species, humans and the smarter nonhuman animals, be more diverse in its outlook and ultimately able to achieve greater things than one in which humans alone are the masters and all other life are but chattel property at best, objects of genocide at the worst?
Imagine if we, over the next century, work diligently at establishing communication with the smarter nonhuman animals and finding a way to integrate our societies into a greater whole. What might we not achieve? What might the viewpoint of a _fully_ educated adult African gray be -- what might it _see_ that we're missing.
If we exterminate our fellow sapient animals, even if we survive as a species we will have rendered our own culture incomparably the poorer for this action.
- Jordan
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Mon, October 30, 2006 - 11:30 PMReading this makes me wonder-- whart are the ten most intelligent animal species? I think I'll start workling on my list... -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Thu, November 2, 2006 - 9:47 AMThat is a main goal in my life. I wish to establish or help establish some model to be used in determining level of intelligence in animals. I do not think we can do this until we get past the human comparison model. A wolf cannot be compared with an elephant or a chicken, so why in the heck do we try to compare it to a human?! I have seen some anecdotal evidence that suggests that carnivorous animals tend to be more intelligent (or at least have more analytical thought) than herbivorous animals. I am wondering if the need to hunt and kill as opposed to simply bending down and munching could have some effect in determining intellect? Hunting requires skills far greater than evasion in my opinion. What are your thoughts Matt? -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Thu, November 2, 2006 - 10:26 PMOrangutans, Gorillas, Elephants, Bonobos, let alone macaws and other parrots are vegetarian and among the most intelligent animals.
Dolphins, Cachalots, and Orcas hunt. Chimps hunt only a small amount.
Bears and most Corvids are omnivorous and very intelligent.
Herbivorous animals like deer and antelopes have need for intelligence beyond evading predators. To us, their food may seem to just sit there, but patterns of growth and nutritional content are complicated functions of time and space. Social interactions are very important for these animals and may explain their relatively high intelligence.
As far as body and brain size, a leopard and an impala are close. Of course the leopard seems more intelligent. But is that because we compare it favorably to ourselves? Or does the impala has a less-effective brain, gram for gram?
There are ways to compare wolves, elephants, humans and chickens. Rather than compare other animals with humans, I prefer to compare humans with other wild animals and see how we stack up on their scale.
see (www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08...hant.html), about elephant mental illness. -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Mon, November 20, 2006 - 11:30 AMUsing wendy's logic,it would seem that omnivorous animals are the most inteligent, as they would need to employ ALL strategies to find food.~ Pixie -
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Re: Avian Intelligence ~ Smarter than Mammals..
Mon, November 20, 2006 - 11:36 PMEmploying multiple strategies in foraging would require more intelligence. But an animal could use a variety of complicated methods to find all plant foods, all animal foods, or a mixture of the two. Also, animals use their brainpower for a variety of tasks besides finding food. You need to look at their overall behavior.
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