Four rooks by the names of Cook, Connelly, Fry, and Monroe have upped estimates of birds’ intelligence by mastering a series of challenges in which they had to use tools to get tasty worms. Researchers say that the birds’ skills rivalled those of well-known tool users such as chimpanzees and New Caledonian crows…. “The study shows the creativity and insight that rooks have when they solve problems,” [BBC News], says study coauthor Nathan Emery. Their abilities are all the more remarkable, researchers say, because rooks are not known to use tools in the wild.
In the laboratory tests, researchers devised a series of challenges in which the rooks had to figure out how to release food from glass tubes. The first featured a worm on a platform that would collapse, allowing it to be eaten if a stone were nudged into the tube. All four birds completed the task. They also chose stones of appropriate shape for tubes of differing sizes.The rooks were also quick to realise that long, thin stones would fit in every tube, regardless of its diameter, as long as it went in lengthways [The Times]. But picking up stones was a modest accomplishment compared to what came next.
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If you get on a mockingbird’s enemy list, expect to be dive-bombed every time you come within the bird‘s sight. That’s one lesson that can be taken from a new study which proved that mockingbirds can recognize individual people, and attack those who have bothered their nests in the past. While ornithologists knew that certain highly intelligent birds like parrots and crows can recognize humans in a lab setting, they were surprised to find similar behavior in a songbird living in the wild. This paper is “a beauty,” says John Fitzpatrick, an ornithologist at Cornell University. “It’s amazing what a bird brain can do” [ScienceNOW Daily News].
The study was prompted by a series of bird attacks. A graduate student involved in research on bird nesting noticed that when she would make repeat visits to peoples’ yards the birds would alarm and attack her, while they would ignore people gardening or doing other things nearby…. Indeed, it seemed they could even recognize her car, and she had to start parking around the corner [AP]. So the researchers designed an experiment to investigate whether the birds really could identify an individual person.
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Young chickens just a few days old can count and perform basic arithmetic, according to a fluffy new study. Researchers manipulated objects that the chicks had formed an attachment to, moving the objects behind little screens, and found that the observant young birds kept track of where the objects were. In effect, the chicks were solving simple math problems like “4 – 2 = 2.”
While some adult animals, including primates and dogs, have been found to have an understanding of basic math, researchers had not previously demonstrated numerical abilities in any young animals (except for humans). Karen Wynn, who has reported evidence of numerical skills in human babies, points out that the chicks haven’t had a chance to learn or develop much. “This work, then, is a compelling existence proof that numerical understanding comprises a built-in system of unlearned knowledge,” Wynn says [Science News].
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A belligerent chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo that stockpiles projectiles to hurl at visitors may be the first definitive proof that some animals can plan far ahead, researchers say. For years a male chimp named Santino has collected stones and other potential missiles into caches around his enclosure, which he returns to hours later when he wants to attack visitors. Researchers say the behavior proves that Santino was planning for the future because he collected the stones in a calm state, prior to the zoo opening in the morning. The launching of the stones occurred hours later – during dominance displays to zoo visitors – with Santino in an “agitated” state [BBC News].
Lead researcher Mathias Osvath says the behavior reveals an advanced animal intelligence. “These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way…. It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including lifelike mental simulations of potential events” [AP], he says.
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A particularly clever band of chimpanzees living in one area of the Congo basin have found a better way to fish for food in termite mounds. Zoologists have long known that chimps eager for a tasty termite snack use a short stick, which is thrust into the termites’ nest. The insects bite on the intruding probe and are then extracted and slurped down [AFP]. But chimps living in an area called the Goualougo Triangle in the Republic of Congo have been observed crafting more complex tools that increase their haul of insect morsels.
Instead of using a simple pointed stick, lead researcher Crickette Sanz says these chimps modify their tools by making a special brush tip. To make their rods, the chimps first picked some stems from the Marantaceae plant and plucked off the leaves. “They then pulled the herb stems through their teeth, which were partially closed, to make the brush and they also attended to the brush by sometimes pulling apart the fibres to make them better at gathering the termites,” Dr Sanz added [BBC News].
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Honeybees have the ability to distinguish and remember visual quantities up to four, according to a new study. Researchers demonstrated that honeybees can match patterns containing the same number of icons, even when the icons are of mixed color and shape. This suggests that honeybees possess a basic number sense that was once thought to be exclusive to vertebrates. Researcher Shaowu Zhang says, “There has been a lot of evidence that vertebrates, such as pigeons, dolphins or monkeys, have some numerical competence but we never expected to find such abilities in insects. So far as these very basic skills go, there is probably no boundary between insects, animals and us” [Daily Mail]
To test the extent of the bees’ number sense, researchers set up a Y-shaped maze with a sweet treat at the end of one arm. In the training phase, bees entered the base of the maze through an entrance marked with either two or three dots. They had to remember this number when the maze forked into two paths— one marked with two dots, the other with three—in order to reach a sugar-water reward [Telegraph]. The 20 or so bees that were trained attained a success rate of 70 percent. Researchers then presented tougher challenges by increasing the number of dots. The bees could also distinguish between three and four dots, but were confused when even more dots were added.
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Capuchin monkeys not only have the capacity to use tools, they also know which tool is best for the job at hand, according to a new study. Researchers observed capuchin monkeys in the wild testing out different stones and consistently settling on the heaviest, sturdiest stone to crack open palm nuts. Although anecdotal reports existed before, the new study is the first to systematically document tool use in capuchin monkeys. Because capuchins last shared a common ancestor with humans approximately 35 million years ago, the team writes, the capacity for stone-tool use evolved earlier than thought [New Scientist].
Researchers studied eight wild capuchins living in a forested area of Brazil. In several different trials, researchers planted two or three different rocks, of varying hardness, size, and weight, near where the monkeys were feeding. The choices ranged from crumbly sandstone to tough quartzite, with some artificial stones that the monkeys would not normally encounter also thrown in the mix. Capuchins chose the most effective stone for cracking nuts more than 90 percent of the time in four conditions. That figure fell slightly to 85 percent when the monkeys selected from artificial stones of the same size and different weights [Science News].
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Certain bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Western Australia have picked up an unusual trick, a new study reports: When they head off to forage for a meal, they first grab sponges and hold them in their beaks as they dive down to the seafloor. These dolphins dive to the bottom of deep channels and poke their sponge-covered beaks into the sandy ocean floor to flush out small fish that dwell there…. Foragers then drop their sponges, gobble up available fish and retrieve the implements for another sweep [Science News]. This complicated procedure is the first confirmed example of tool use by dolphins, researchers say.
Scientists had previously observed some dolphins in Australia’s Shark Bay carrying around sponges, but the purpose was unclear. The new study documents this unusual behavior, which only a subset of a larger dolphin population engages in, and also probes the remaining mysteries. Researchers still aren’t sure why most of the “spongers” are female, and they haven’t determined whether the behavior conveys a real evolutionary benefit, although they have hypotheses to explore on both points.
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Dogs have a sense of fairness, and get jealous and upset when several dogs perform a trick but only one is rewarded, a new study has found. “They are clearly unhappy with the unfair situation”, says [lead researcher Friederike] Range. She also suspects that this sensitivity might stretch beyond food to things like praise and attention. “It might explain why some dogs react with ‘new baby envy’ when their owners have a child”, she says [New Scientist].
While some owners may say that they’ve known about the deep emotional lives of their dogs for ages, the new experiments mark the first time a complicated emotion like jealousy has been observed in dogs in a controlled laboratory setting. “We are learning that dogs, horses, and perhaps many other species are far more emotionally complex than we ever realized,” [says] Paul Morris, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth who studies animal emotions…. “They can suffer simple forms of many emotions we once thought only primates could experience” [Times Online].
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IBM has won a $4.9 million government grant from DARPA to begin the first phase of research on “cognitive computing”– essentially building computers that work like living brains. The new brain-like computers will aim to process vast amounts of data to solve problems without relying on specific programmed algorithms. Mark Dean, Vice President of IBM said, “The challenge is that computers today are very good at computing, but what we really need is a more efficient way of sifting through information” [International Herald Tribune].
The inside of computers already have the look of neural networks, a static road map of electronic circuits. But the brain actually works by constantly creating, breaking, and tweaking the synaptic connections between neurons. Although today’s computers may excel at complex challenges with clear rules, like chess, they fail at simple tasks that require strategy, sensation, perception, and learning, like finding misplaced keys. IBM will partner with five universities to develop new nano-scale circuitry that has the ability to shift depending on the signals that pass through them. Free from the constraints of explicitly programmed function, computers could gather together disparate information, weigh it based on experience, form memory independently and arguably begin to solve problems in a way that has so far been the preserve of what we call “thinking” [BBC].
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It’s not just we humans who value consensus: A new study has shown that stickleback fish make better decisions when acting as a group than they do as individuals. Researchers set up a clever experiment in which the fish had to choose which leader to follow in the quest for food, giving them an option between a “good” choice and a “bad” choice. Based on earlier experiments, the study’s researchers had a pretty good idea about … stickleback preferences. Fat, evenly colored fish are regarded as healthy and strong, while scrawny fish mottled with black spots may be considered diseased. Coauthor Ashley Ward … says of these sticklebacks, “Fish like large leaders, well-fed leaders and unparasitized leaders” [Science News].
Researchers made a stickleback replica that looked healthy and fat as well as one that appeared bony and mottled, and put both into the fish tank. When shown the fish replicas, the other sticklebacks in the tank would approach and follow one of the two replicas, which were moved around by remote control. Following a certain fish would be their version of casting a ballot…. When just one fish chose its leader, the fish would make the right choice, picking the healthiest leader about 55 percent of the time. That number went up to 80 percent with the eight-fish electorate [LiveScience].
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Bumblebees that have a close encounter with a dangerous predator are still cautious and wary the next day, even though their trepidation slows them down as they forage for food. In a new study, researchers used robot spiders to briefly trap the bees and study their behavior afterwards, and found that in the end, some of the bumblebees get a little paranoid…. “They’re behaving as if they’re starting to see ghosts,” [co-author Lars] Chittka says [Science News].
The researchers used small robots to imitate the look and behavior of crab spiders, which are one of the major predators of bumblebees. They lie in wait in flowers which the bees need to visit to collect nectar, and are difficult to spot because they can change colour to match their surroundings [New Scientist].
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In a match-up between an annoyed human brandishing a fly swatter and a buzzing fly, who wins? As most people know from frustrating experience, all too often the fly easily evades the human’s swat, and buzzes merrily into another region of the room. Now, using a high-speed camera, scientists have determined just how the fly makes its astoundingly effective escape.
Biologist Michael Dickinson used a video camera that shoots 5400 frames per second to record a fly’s precise motions when threatened with a swatting. The video showed that as a threatening object moved towards the fly from one direction, it shuffled its feat and positioned itself to take off in the opposite direction–all within 200 milliseconds. “They perform an elegant little ballet with their legs,” says Dickinson. “They move their legs around to reposition their bodies so that when they do jump, they will push themselves away from the looming threat” [NPR].
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Some clever magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror, leading researchers to include them among the ranks of self-aware animals—an elite group that is generally thought to include only humans, great apes, bottlenose dolphins, and elephants. This new study suggests that a brain capable of surprisingly sophisticated intelligence developed in a few birds long after they split from the mammalian evolutionary tree, about 300 million years ago.
Says lead researcher Helmut Prior: “It shows that the line leading to humans is not as special as many thought…. After finding this kind of intelligence in apes, many people thought it had developed once in one evolutionary line with humans at the end. The bird studies show it has developed at least twice”[Reuters].
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Evolutionary biologists have long been interested in the dimensions of the human noggin, and more specifically the size of the brain tucked inside. The human cranium is so big, they point out, that it poses risks during childbirth, and it takes a lot of energy to keep that big brain humming along. Most researchers assumed that the large size must deliver a major evolutionary advantage, like the capacity for increased intelligence, to make up for these disadvantages.
Now a study published in Nature Neuroscience [subscription required] suggests that it wasn’t an increased number of brain cells that gave humans such an evolutionary boost, but rather the increased complexity in the synapses between brain cells.
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