We Finally Know Why Birds Are So Freakishly Smart

[pokerfan]

Birds are capable of extraordinary behavioral feats, from solving complex puzzles to tool making. There may be good reason for that. A new study shows that, pound for pound, birds pack more neurons into their small brains than mammals, including primates.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this study is the first to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of more than a dozen bird species, from tiny zebra finches to the six-foot-tall emu. By doing so, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel and her team at Vanderbilt University discovered that avian brains contain more neurons per square inch than mammalian brains.

This means that birds pack more brain power per pound than mammals, offering an explanation for their remarkable cognitive talents. What’s more, the study shows that evolution has found more than one way to build a complex brain.

Scientists have long wondered how birds—with their teeny-tiny brains—are capable of exhibiting many complex behaviors, some of which were thought to the be exclusive domain of larger primates. Birds can manufacture tools, cache food, plan for the future, pass the mirror test, use insight to solve problems, and understand cause-and-effect. They’ve also been observed to hide food in front of other birds, and then relocate that food when the other birds aren’t looking. This suggests that birds have a “theory of mind,” which means they’re capable of inferring what other birds are thinking. Very few animals can do that.

More: http://gizmodo.com/we-finally-know-why-birds-are-so-freakishly-smart-1781889157

The study is also freely available: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1517131113.full.pdf

[BlancheSplanchnik]

1. I'll have to send this to my friend who has a parrot!

She'll be glad to know how Yoya manages to drive her so nutz!

[matt819]

2. Also

They spend less time than human mammals (or is that mammal humans?) looking at cat videos on the Internet.

[Auggie]

3. So it's a good thing someone calls me bird-brain?

[pokerfan]

5. Absolutely

It's been suspected for some time that the avian brain is more efficient but this is the first study I've seen that answers why. Retaining the capability of flight puts some limits on how large a bird's brain can weigh.

I love our feathered cousins:

[Ellen Forradalom]

4. Polly for President

This President is pining for the fjords.

[SheilaT]

6. Some birds are really smart. African greys are amazingly so.

On the other hand, the swallows that are raising this year's crop of babies just outside my front door are amazingly stupid.

[Volaris]

7. Crows.

That is all.

[SheilaT]

8. So are crows smart or stupid?

I do believe they have a reputation for being smart, but I haven't been around crows in decades.

My swallows. Dumb. Dumb as sticks. Eight years ago a nesting pair build a nest in the overhang right outside my front door. Every year I get a new pair. Not sure how each year's pair finds the nest. I suspect I mostly get one of the babies from last year, whoever gets here first claims the nest.

Two years ago that pair build a second nest in the same overhang. They're separated by a wooden beam. So now, they (and maybe this shows they're smarter than I'm giving them credit for) have essentially a two bedroom apartment, because at night one of the two is with the eggs/babies, and the other is in the first nest. Which wasn't well built to begin with, and I'm slightly surprised it hasn't fallen off, but it's still there.

Anyway, my swallows always raise two sets of three babies each year.

[Volaris]

10. Corvids are smart as fuck.

Generational information exchange (offspring teaching)
Localized distinction of universal vocalizations (language dialects) LONG term memory (like it's been 3 years and still no crows in farmer bobs tree cause he shot one once)...AND, when that bird died, the call went out and several HUNDRED birds came and sat in the tree to 'pay their respects'.
I'm on my phone so no link to the PBS doc, but it's on the Google Machine somewhere.
Scary amazing stuff.
=)

[djean111]

27. Last week I heard a loud bunch of crows in my side yard.

My dog went to investigate, and was promptly dive-bombed by two crows, and then another two crows. She came back inside. There was a juvenile crow by the fence, hurt leg, and quite a crowd of crows was watching over it. Son and grandson put it in a basket on the ground, water and bird seed - but as I expected, the crow hopped out. Could not find it. Next day, loud screeches again - and the only one of my cats who hunts had killed it, and put it, proudly, in the middle of my bed. I had LOTS of crow company for the grave-digging and service.

I have wayched a hawk stalk a mama duck and her little train of ducklings, and I try to tell myself this is the actual circle of life, it is not often pretty. And as someone here at DU told me, concerning that baby bison, every dead animal is food for another animal.

The crows were remarkably attentive.

[pscot]

12. Crows watch every move you make

And they tell other crows.

[csziggy]

23. Even though we have a 60 acre farm the crows watch the house

I put past stale bread out the front for the birds. The crows keep a lookout and as soon as I go out with a bread bag, they start calling. By the time I'm back inside and discard the bag, the entire murder of crows is on the lawn picking up all the pieces of bread.

If I throw something different out, they check it out and spend more time figuring out if it's good to eat.

We put our decaying organics out the other side of the house and the crows will check the piles of coffee grounds, banana peels and other stuff but they don't get as excited. It figures since most of that is not edible and the crows have learned that.

[Chellee]

14. Somewhere on the internet...

you can probably find this video.

I saw a tv show (don't remember what it was called, sorry) about animal intelligence. They showed video of a crow that figured out how to use city traffic to get himself easy access to his dinner. He would pick up a nut, fly over the street and drop it in the crosswalk. Then he would wait for the light to change, allowing the cars to drive over the nut and crack it open. Again, he would wait for the light to change, then he would very casually fly down to the crosswalk, eat the nut pieces and get out of the way before the light changed again. Not only did he use the cars as nutcrackers determining the best placement of the nuts in the street, he figured out where to drop the nut so that a car wouldn't be parked on it, and timed the dropping of the nut to the lights. Smart bird.

[pokerfan]

25. Is this it?

[Chellee]

28. That is it!

Aren't they smart?

[arcane1]

26. They also enjoy sledding

[Omaha Steve]

9. PBS did a good report on the intelligence of crows

We used to have a friend with one he rescued as an orphan. It was amazing to watch his friend follow him around in flight.

OS

[Plucketeer]

11. My wife and I have shared our home

with parrots for 32 years now. Currently, we have four. They're SO friggin Smart!

[valerief]

13. That may be true of a lot of birds but not stupid, friggin' cardinals. Those damn stupid

birds NEVER learn that when they body-slam my windows, it's only their reflections. Stupid shits. I call them the Republican birds. They refuse to share territory and never learn a friggin' thing.

I've had to shit up my windows to scare them off.

I'm currently in love with the black-capped chickadee. They don't body-slam my windows and come right up to me.

[Chellee]

15. Yeah, true.

Cardinals will also attempt to beat the crap out of the bird that lives in the side view mirror of your car.

I watch them and I think, how can they not notice while they're pecking at it that it doesn't feel like another bird? But no, mad as hell, and determined to teach that bird a lesson.

[valerief]

16. Republicans! Cuz facts don't matter to them!!!! Give me a pigeon over a cardinal any day. nt

[lastlib]

21. Confirmed!

One summer, at a week-long scout camp, we watched a cardinal try for all seven days to beat the ever-lovin' CRAP out of his reflection in an outside rear-view mirror. He went at it hammer and tongs, daily, for hours at a time, trying to peck that stupid "other bird's" eyes out!

[NorthCarolina]

17. It also happens that they're much better judges of character

than many people too, as evidenced by:

[itsrobert]

18. I taught I saw a puty tat get outsmarted by a tweety bird

I did, I did.

[GeorgeGist]

19. So being a bird brain is a good thing.

[lastlib]

22. unless the bird in question is a domestic turkey!

Now there's a Capital STOOPID for ya. The wild ones are rocket scientists by comparison!

[Triana]

20. Makes me feel even worse about the poor chickens and geese. :( n/t

[harun]

24. Birds lungs are much more efficient than ours too.