Avian Intelligence. What You Didn't Know About This Bird.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/dbee3817bb53.jpg[/atsimg]

Recent research has found some crow species capable not only of tool use, but of tool construction as well.[2] Crows are now considered to be among the world's most intelligent animals.[3] The Jackdaw and (along with its fellow corvid, the European Magpie) has been found to have a neostriatum approximately the same relative size as is found in chimpanzees and humans, and significantly larger than is found in the gibbon.[4]

Intelligence

As a group, crows show remarkable examples of intelligence, and Aesop's fable of The Crow and the Pitcher shows that humans have long viewed the crow as an intelligent bird. Crows and ravens often score very highly on intelligence tests. Certain species top the avian IQ scale.[9] Wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing.[10] Crows will engage in a kind of mid-air jousting, or air-"chicken" to establish pecking order. Crows have been found to engage in feats such as tool use, the ability to hide and store food across seasons, episodic-like memory, and the ability to use individual experience in predicting the behavior of environmental conspecifics.

[11] One species, the New Caledonian Crow, has also been intensively studied recently because of its ability to manufacture and use its own tools in the day-to-day search for food. These tools include 'knives' cut from stiff leaves and stiff stalks of grass.[12] Another skill involves dropping tough nuts into a trafficked street and waiting for a car to crush them open.[13][14] On October 5, 2007, researchers from the University of Oxford, England presented data acquired by mounting tiny video cameras on the tails of New Caledonian Crows. It turned out that they use a larger variety of tools than previously known, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems to procure a variety of foodstuffs.[15][16] Crows in Queensland, Australia have learned how to eat the toxic cane toad by flipping the cane toad on its back and violently stabbing the throat where the skin is thinner, allowing the crow to access the non-toxic innards; their long beaks ensure that all of the innards can be removed.[17]

[18] Recent research suggests that crows have the ability to recognize one individual human from another by facial features.

Source



wn.com...




Although the crow displays amazing feats of intelligence, I can't find any information on them that shows that they are self aware. There is a bird called the European Magpie that passes what is known as The Mirror Test that is used to define a being as being self-aware. When a being looks in the mirror and knows what they are looking at is themselves, then they are seen to be self aware, like humans. The Magpie has been known to hoard shiny objects, but I haven't found any evidence of them using tools in the way that crows do. Both the crow and the magpie are both members of the Corvidae family.

id like to add this information. i believe if crows were sm,art now, they were smart back then, in which case they would have been noticed by our ancestors. which they have

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by Amassuo
id like to add this information. i believe if crows were sm,art now, they were smart back then, in which case they would have been noticed by our ancestors. which they have

en.wikipedia.org...

I've seen a 3 legged chicken before.

I had a feeling there was more too them. Whenever they are around I just get a certain feeling about them not a bad 1 just a feeling. So it amazes me to see them perform like this. S&F for the cool share

Uh. Why is this thread in dreams and personal predictions? I put it in fragile earth.

Love birds. I have several myself. Crows have always fascinated me. We have quite the group of crows that seem to hang around here, and I swear sometimes these crazy birds are talking and communicating about me when I'm shooing them away. They can be quite defiant.

Originally posted by Balkan
Love birds. I have several myself. Crows have always fascinated me. We have quite the group of crows that seem to hang around here, and I swear sometimes these crazy birds are talking and communicating about me when I'm shooing them away. They can be quite defiant.

Any being who uses technology will always be deviant to the natural order of things.

Originally posted by smithjustinb
Uh. Why is this thread in dreams and personal predictions? I put it in fragile earth.

I noticed that as well, I was going to ask. But since you beat me to it, sometimes it seems that the mods will skim a new thread and change its forum without putting much thought behind it. *shrugs*

Originally posted by IntegratedInstigator

Originally posted by smithjustinb
Uh. Why is this thread in dreams and personal predictions? I put it in fragile earth.

I noticed that as well, I was going to ask. But since you beat me to it, sometimes it seems that the mods will skim a new thread and change its forum without putting much thought behind it. *shrugs*

I think we've all been a victim to the mods' inconsideration. But don't waste your time trying to bring it to their attention. Their egos are way too big to consider even listening to you. After all, they are a part of "the best staff on the internet".

Originally posted by smithjustinb
When a being looks in the mirror and knows what they are looking at is themselves, then they are seen to be self aware, like humans.

...yep but thats just a human perception... it doesnt mean the bird or whatever is actually self-aware...

...did you know there are humans who dont recognize themselves in a mirror?... yep... if they just look down at themselves, they know its them - but - if they see their reflection, its a distortion of what they think they look like or they see someone / something else entirely...

...one day i noticed a crow hopping up and down, looking at its reflection on the front bumper of the truck... i wondered if it recognized itself but then it started pecking at its reflection and it seemed quite agitated... so i dont think it was self-aware but, then again, maybe it was and had body dysmorphic disorder...

...an old saying is - if you see three or more crows together, people are talking about you... i've always wondered how that got started... i suspect a paranoid delusional was involved, lol...

I have shared my life with a Military Macaw for nearly a dozen years now.

On his part (could be a she but its never laid an egg ), he has established his place in the family to a greater degree than any pet I've ever seen.

He is incredibly self aware by any standard and has over time learned what is expected of him so well he has developed the same freedoms as the dog, coming and going outside as he pleases.

He understands so well that he knows to go outside to screech and yell loudly and to be relatively quiet indoors, its really quite uncanny.

His social needs and interactions are so complex that I half joke with people who ask that keeping a parrot is like caring for a child forever stuck in their terrible two's.

Bird intelligence can easily rival that of domestic dogs and cats as I'm sure anyone else reading that have interacted with a parrot, cockatoo, crow, magpie etc for any amount of time will attest.

A word of warning for anyone considering this type of pet.

The smarter species live for years and require a tremendous amount of social interaction to be happy in captivity.

It is common for somebody to buy one on a whim, be quickly overwhelmed with the noise, beak and mess and sentence the bird to a life of solitary isolation in a back room.

Arbitrarily taking a sentient life form and sentencing them to a solitary life of sensory deprivation is a sad and sobering commentary on what current society is willing to tolerate as acceptably responsible pet ownership.

That may have been my fault with the three leg crow thing. I apologise.

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks

Originally posted by smithjustinb
When a being looks in the mirror and knows what they are looking at is themselves, then they are seen to be self aware, like humans.

...yep but thats just a human perception... it doesnt mean the bird or whatever is actually self-aware...

I think it does.

Gallup built on these observations by devising a test that attempts to gauge self-awareness by determining whether an animal can recognize its own reflection in a mirror as an image of itself. This is accomplished by surreptitiously marking the animal with two odourless dye spots. The test spot is on a part of the animal that would be visible in front of a mirror, while the control spot is in an accessible but hidden part of the animal's body. Scientists observe that the animal reacts in a manner consistent with it being aware that the test dye is located on its own body while ignoring the control dye. Such behaviour includes turning and adjusting of the body in order to better view the marking in the mirror, or poking at the marking on its own body with a limb while viewing the mirror.

en.wikipedia.org...

...did you know there are humans who dont recognize themselves in a mirror?... yep... if they just look down at themselves, they know its them - but - if they see their reflection, its a distortion of what they think they look like or they see someone / something else entirely...

Yeah, generally a baby doesn't recognize itself until around 18 months old. And then you have the people who are blinded by materialism and only see their materialistic self and not their true self. But that's a whole different story.

I wish I would have done this report on the European magpie now. These animals are way smarter than crows and they have proven to be self aware. Actually, they are right there with humans and chimps in intelligence. Crows and magpies are part of the same family though.

Intelligence

The European Magpie is believed to be among the most intelligent of birds, and among the most intelligent of all animals. Magpies have been observed engaging in elaborate social rituals, possibly including the expression of grief.[6] Mirror self-recognition has been demonstrated in European magpies.[7] The magpie is thus one of a small number of species, and the only non-mammal, known to possess this capability.[8] The cognitive abilities of the European Magpie are taken as evidence that intelligence evolved independently in both corvids/crows and primates. This is indicated by feats such as tool use, their ability to hide and store food across seasons, episodic-like memory, and the ability to use one's own experience in predicting the behavior of conspecifics.[1] Various behaviours have been observed that indicate intelligence. It has been observed that they cut up their food in correctly sized proportions, depending on the size of their young. In captivity magpies have been observed counting up to get food, imitating human voices, and regularly using tools to clean their own cages. In the wild, they organise themselves into gangs, and use complex strategies when hunting other birds, and when confronted by predators.[9] Along with the Jackdaw, the European Magpie has been found to have a neostriatum approximately the same relative size as is found in chimpanzees and humans, and significantly larger than is found in the gibbon.[2] Like other corvids, such as Ravens and Crows, their total brain to body ratio is equal to that of great apes and cetaceans, and only slightly lower than in humans.[10]

Source

Originally posted by Amassuo
That may have been my fault with the three leg crow thing. I apologise.

lol. Its all good.

Originally posted by Drunkenparrot

Arbitrarily taking a sentient life form and sentencing them to a solitary life of sensory deprivation is a sad and sobering commentary on what current society is willing to tolerate as acceptably responsible pet ownership.

edit on 3-8-2011 by Drunkenparrot because: (no reason given)

Amen. That's partly why I don't want to own an animal. I'd rather see them all free than to hold one in captivity.

reply to post by smithjustinb
I feel that way also, but most of these animals that are sold at petstores are little more than meat and end up in the hands of people who will never make the commitment to understand what certain animals need to be healthy. When I purchase an animal from the petstore I feel like I am rescuing it from potential hell, and it's going to have a secure, healthy and comfortable life to live.