A Lesson for Ravens: Don’t Eat the Tortoises-Can fake tortoise shells teach predators to stop devouring soft-shelled juveniles? – via Herp Digest

THOM VAN DOOREN

OCT 8, 2019, The Atlantic

SHELIE PUFFER / AP


Tim Shields didn’t see any young tortoises himself. For the most part, the only sign of them was their shells, desiccated and punctured, scattered around the landscape and piled under the occasional Joshua tree. He was working on a long-term monitoring project in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, where over the past few decades juvenile tortoises had all but disappeared from the study areas. This particular year, the scientists and volunteers spotted a single live juvenile tortoise—in the beak of a raven, flailing its legs as it was carried away.

That was eight years ago, and it marked a turning point for Shields, he told me, sitting in his kitchen in Joshua Tree, California. While desert tortoises face a range of threats, for juveniles whose shells are still soft, raven predation is perhaps the biggest concern. Shields knew that past efforts to control the canny birds by shooting or poisoning them had faced legal challenges from animal activists; many scientists think, as well, that killing enough ravens to protect tortoises simply isn’t possible. So Shields went in search of an alternative.

After talking with other biologists, engineers, and even some rocket scientists—with anyone, really—he concluded that he needed to teach ravens a new way of life. Working with a diverse cadre of collaborators, including the noted raven-biologist William Boarman, the design software company Autodesk, and a science teacher from Shields’s hometown, his company, Hardshell Labs, created the “techno-tort”—an educational tool for ravens designed to get across one lesson: They ought not to eat tortoises.

Shields introduced me to the techno-tort in the front yard of his house. Originally inspired by basic styrofoam tortoises that Boarman made in the 1990s, the techno-tort is now uncannily lifelike. Lying in the sand, the 3-D-printed shell had a similar solidity and texture to the real thing but was considerably lighter. This one had been color-printed, but earlier prototypes were hand-painted—and subsequent shells have been too, while the company searches for a printing pigment that will last under the desert sun.

In the field, techno-torts will be fitted with accelerometers and methyl anthranilate, a nontoxic bird deterrent. When a raven disturbs the shell, it will let out an explosive spray with a noxious taste and odor. A more low-tech version will involve packing shells full of meat treated with another nontoxic substance that will briefly nauseate the raven. The aim is to effectively communicate, through the experience of fright or queasiness, a simple message: Stay away.

Until recently, the main approaches available to conservationists for dealing with difficult wildlife have been limited—basically fencing them out or killing them. But now pedagogic alternatives are beginning to emerge, raising the question of whether fractious relationships might be modified by a little interspecies education.

Conservationists have tried to reeducate wildlife in the past. A range of animals, from stout wallabies to the giant lizards of the Canary Islands, has undergone training on avoiding predators, with mixed results. There have been efforts to teach golden lion tamarins to eschew dangerous foods, and whooping cranes to migrate. But these projects had only small, usually captive classes of students. In recent years, behavioral interventions have been significantly scaled up.

In the Kimberley region of Western Australia, for instance, researchers have launched the world’s largest cane-toad-mitigation effort, which depends on teaching wild animals about the dangers of these toxic toads. Introduced in 1935, cane toads have caused severe population declines among many species of larger predators, from freshwater crocodiles and giant monitor lizards to the critically endangered northern quoll, a small but fierce nocturnal marsupial. To these animals, accustomed to eating local amphibians without consequence, cane toads look like a tempting meal.

Many of these predators might survive an encounter with a smaller cane toad, but the toads at the front of this advancing wave are large, highly toxic animals. So Rick Shine of Macquarie University in Sydney and his collaborators have sought to create their own advance guard. In a study led by Samantha J. Price-Rees, they introduced bluetongue lizards to nauseating sausages made of minced cane toad; in another, led by Georgia Ward-Fear, they exposed monitor lizards to juvenile, less toxic “teacher toads.” Both of these animals proved to be quick studies and began to avoid adult toads. Shine, along with a group of research and conservation partners known as the Cane Toad Coalition, is currently rolling out a multiyear project to drop teacher toads and sausages ahead of the main toad wave.

The cane toad project is meant to protect predators from their own appetites, but other new initiatives, such as the techno-torts, are trying to save vulnerable prey by reeducating the animals that eat them. On the South Island of New Zealand, a massive campaign is under way to encourage more recently arrived predators—hedgehogs, rats, cats, and ferrets—to ignore the eggs and chicks of banded dotterels, wrybills, and other birds. In two study areas totaling 1,800 hectares, plus control sites, a team of ecologists has been smearing Vaseline infused with bird scents around the landscape. This system of “chemical camouflage,” developed by Catherine Price and Peter Banks of the University of Sydney (where I work as well), starts with spreading the scent of birds for a month or so prior to the breeding season; predators learn to ignore this olfactory cue as an unrewarding distraction. The trial results are still being analyzed, but previous efforts with other species and on smaller scales produced remarkable results. In an earlier study, the nests in treated areas had a 62 percent greater survival rate than the controls.

What unites all of these projects is a curiosity about how animals learn. But teaching animals means that researchers have to do their own deep learning on the ways different animals think and behave. In Australia, researchers have found that while bluetongue lizards can be effectively trained with cane toad sausages or teacher toads, monitor lizards require the latter to retain their aversion. In New Zealand, researchers need to worry about how different predators generalize: What combination of bird scents will teach a predator to ignore all avian species? This kind of question is part of a growing appreciation of the complexity of animals’ cognitive abilities. As Shine told me, “We can attempt to use those abilities to change the outcomes of encounters between potential predators and prey in a way that probably we weren’t thinking about a decade ago.”

In Joshua Tree, Shields and Boarman showed me footage from cameras they placed out in the desert with prototype techno-torts. In one memorable clip, an adult raven confidently approaches the techno-tort and, without hesitation, flips it over and pounds down on the underside of the shell. Was she curious about a strange object in the environment? Was she wondering where this bad replica of a tortoise shell had come from? Or did she believe that she had come across the familiar form of a tortoise? From the clip, the last possibility seems likely.

Shields and Boarman are passionately interested in understanding how ravens make sense of techno-torts. They need to be. For this approach to have any chance of success, the ravens need to mistake these shells for the real thing. Otherwise they won’t be learning to avoid tortoises, just techno-torts. In other trials, the researchers are changing the shape and color of the shells to see how these tweaks influence raven interactions. Which of these cues really matter?

As I drove away from Shields’s house that afternoon, I saw a group of ravens eating roadkill. This readily available food source is just one of the many transformations to the desert that have increased raven numbers. In recent decades, human settlement has provided a steady supply of food, water, and nesting places. These changes have also destroyed tortoises’ habitat, which is now crisscrossed by roads, overtaken by human uses, and modified by introduced plants and cattle. While ravens are a worrying threat to young tortoises, they are far from the only danger.

The techno-tort project, then, might only sidestep a larger problem. This criticism is leveled at many of these “educational” projects. After all, even if they succeed, abundant numbers of ravens, cane toads, and rats will still be left roaming around. And Shields and Boarman are pretty sure that whatever they develop will work for only a limited time with crafty ravens. Alongside the techno-torts, they are working on a suite of other tools, including modified lasers and drones, to both haze and educate these birds. In the end, Shields explained to me, it’s going to be a bit like a chess match, an ongoing effort to adapt to ravens’ own prodigious capacities for learning and experimentation.

These conservationists don’t see educational approaches as a cure-all. Instead, their projects are often meant to buy time. Boarman was explicit about this: All that mitigating the impact of ravens can do, he told me, is produce a whole lot of tortoise teenagers, which will still need a desert that can support them. Shields agreed: The aim of the techno-tort, he said, is simply to “stop the hemorrhaging.” But, he went on to say, until we can modify human behavior in the desert, “we need to buy time, and we can buy time by altering raven behavior. That’s the hope.”

RSPB believes as many as 10 ravens were deliberately killed with poison, near Knighton

19th February

By Barry Hancock

West Mercia Police has carried out an investigation after 10 dead ravens, a dead crow and parts of a dead lamb were found close together on farmland near Vron Woods, Beguildy, near Knighton, on the Powys/Shropshire border.

The birds were reported to the RSPB and collected by Natural England in April 2018, which sent the birds to be tested.

Government toxicology tests on five of the ravens, the crow and the lamb confirmed the presence of Diazinon. This is a veterinary product, used legally for sheep dip, but which is known to have been used illegally to poison wildlife. It is believed the lamb carcass was deliberately laced with Diazinon for this purpose.

Birds of prey and ravens are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. To kill or injure one is a criminal offence and could result in an unlimited fine or up to six months in jail. Police interviewed a local person under caution but, due to lack of evidence, the case could go no further.

Ravens are a recovering species which breed mainly in Wales, Scotland, and western and northern England.

Jenny Shelton from RSPB Investigations said: “Shropshire has a history of Diazinon abuse for the purpose of illegally targeting birds of prey and other protected species. We are grateful to Natural England and the police for investigating this matter, which poses a serious threat to wildlife and people.

"Ravens are incredibly intelligent creatures, able solve problems and form memories similar to our own. These once-scarce birds are gradually starting to recover after persistent persecution at the hands of humans, so it’s disturbing to hear of incidents like this still taking place.

“This area is also a stronghold for red kites – another bird making a comeback after disappearing entirely from England due to persecution. Poison baits pose a danger to these birds too.”

If you have any information relating to this incident, call West Mercia Police on 101.

The RSPB is urging people to be vigilant and report dead birds of prey or ravens this spring – a key time of year for illegal poisoning to take place. If you find a dead bird of prey or raven beside a carcass that could be a poison bait, contact the government hotline on 0800 321600. Alternatively contact the police on 101 or RSPB investigations on 01767 680551.

Source

Ravens, Corvus corax, differentiate between knowledgeable and ignorant competitors

Thomas Bugnyar and 

Bernd Heinrich

Published:14 July 2005https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2005.3144

Abstract

Human social behaviour is influenced by attributing mental states to others. It is debated whether and to what extent such skills might occur in non-human animals. We here test for the possibility of ravens attributing knowledge about the location of food to potential competitors. In our experiments, we capitalize on the mutually antagonistic interactions that occur in these birds between those individuals that store food versus those that try to pilfer these caches. Since ravens' pilfer success depends on memory of observed caches, we manipulated the view of birds at caching, thereby designing competitors who were either knowledgeable or ignorant of cache location and then tested the responses of both storers and pilferers to those competitors at recovery. We show that ravens modify their cache protection and pilfer tactics not simply in response to the immediate behaviour of competitors, but also in relation to whether or not they previously had the opportunity of observing caching. Our results suggest that the birds not only recall whom they had seen during caching, but also know that obstacles can obstruct the view of others and that this affects pilfering.

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Crows Are Always Jerks to Ravens, Research Confirms

A new study shows that although crows are smaller than ravens, they are almost always the aggressors when the two species interact.

BY ANNIE ROTH

PUBLISHED JULY 4, 2018

LIVING ALONGSIDE A group of crows can be murder for a raven.

Across North America, common ravens are regularly harassed by gangs of crows, according to a new study published Wednesday in The Auk: Ornithological Advances. In 97 percent of reported interactions between crows and ravens, scientists report, crows were the aggressors.

This grudge match goes way back. In North America, ravens are both competitors and predators of the crow. Given the chance, brazen, jet-black ravens will happily make a meal out of a crow’s clutch of eggs. And one on one, a crow doesn’t stand a chance against a raven, which can reach up to three times a crow’s size and weight. (Read more about how ravens hold grudges against humans.)

But what crows lack in size, they make up for in numbers. Ganging up “gives crows the upper hand,” says Ben Freeman, postdoctoral fellow at University of British Columbia and lead author of the study.

Read on  

Scottish Natural Heritage defends raven-killing licence

By Kevin KeaneBBC Scotland's environment correspondent

2 May 2018

Scottish Natural Heritage has defended its controversial decision to allow ravens to be killed for the protection of wading birds.

The licence, for the Strathbraan area of Perth and Kinross, has prompted outrage from conservationists because ravens are a protected species.

But wading birds, such as lapwings and curlews, are in a rapid decline which is "reaching crisis point."

Land managers say the control measures allow all species to thrive.

Gamekeepers say the ravens often arrive in glens in significant numbers where they attack and kill the wading birds.

RSPB Scotland insists there is little evidence that ravens are the main cause of the decline in numbers.

Nick Halfhide, head of sustainable development at Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), told BBC Scotland: "We really understand that people find this a difficult topic. Killing one species to protect another isn't something that others like, but unfortunately it's something land managers do on a regular basis and they have to do that to protect their interests.

Read more 

Are Those Gravitational Waves? Nope, They're Just Thirsty Ravens

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | April 19, 2018 03:23pm ET

Bizarre data glitches have set gravitational-wave scientists — and a conspiracy of ravens — all aflutter.

A series of weird blips in the data, known as short-duration bursts, raised the suspicions of physicists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Hanford Observatory, in eastern Washington. Were they communications from alien beings? The work of nefarious data scramblers? Or previously unknown physics?

It turns out it was none of the above.

Rather, the blips came from a conspiracy of thirsty ravens that were pecking at ice on pipes leading into the facility, the researchers announced on April 16 at an American Physical Society meeting in Columbus, Ohio, according to their abstract. 

The discovery came about after the physicists decided to increase the sensitivity of the advanced LIGO at the Hanford Observatory, one of two facilities in the United States (the other is in Livingston, Louisiana) that detects gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves have been in the news in recent years. Albert Einstein predicted that these ripples in space-time would form when massive objects in the universe collided. Thanks to data collected by the observatories in Washington and Louisiana, physicists directly detected gravitational waves for the first time in September 2015, and three of them won the Nobel Prize in physics for this discovery in 2017.

Read on  

Row breaks out over plan to allow gamekeepers to cull hundreds of ravens

Alistair Grant Political Correspondent

A ROW has broken out over controversial plans to push forward with an “experimental” cull of hundreds of ravens.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has granted a group of farmers and gamekeepers a five-year licence to kill 300 birds in Perthshire.

But RSPB Scotland has now claimed the scheme has little to do with protecting wading birds, as claimed – and is instead a thinly veiled attempt to get rid of a perceived pest to benefit grouse shooting estates.

It said it was “outraged” to learn a licence had been given to Strathbraan Community for Waders, which says it represents “some of the local land management…and private interests in the area who value wading birds for their biodiversity, social and economic value to the area and to Scotland more widely.”

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Two become one: two raven lineages merge in 'speciation reversal'

After up to two million years of separate evolution, two types of common raven have been ‘caught in the act’ of consolidation, say scientists

Hannah Devlin

Fri 2 Mar 2018 10.00 GMTLast modified on Fri 2 Mar 2018 23.25 GMT

Speciation, where one species diverges into two, is a well-known concept in the theory of evolution. But a new study based on almost 20 years of research has revealed that “speciation reversal”, the merging of two previously distinct lineages, may also play an important role.

Scientists have discovered that two lineages of common raven that spent between one and two million years evolving separately appear to be in the process of such a consolidation. The findings raise intriguing questions about how science should define species – and whether the boundaries are as clearcut as once thought.

 “The bottom line is [speciation reversal] is a natural evolutionary process, and it’s probably happened in hundreds, or almost certainly thousands, of lineages all over the planet,” said Kevin Omland, professor of biological sciences at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and co-author of the new study. “One of our biggest goals is to just have people aware of this process.”

Omland first began studying the raven 20 years ago, after he began to suspect that two separate species could have been lumped together. He reported the existence of two lineages: one concentrated in the southwestern United States, dubbed “California,” and another found everywhere else (including Maine, Alaska, Norway and Russia) called “Holarctic”.

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Ravens are smarter than your average bird

‘The’ raven is a bird that outwardly enjoys life

LORI FOX

Oct. 26, 2017 9:30 a.m.

There is no doubt that ravens — those most cunning, audacious and outspoken of birds — hold a place of honour in the Yukon. The raven is the territorial bird, ubiquitous in the North, and the symbol of one of the five clans of the Tlingit. Every Yukoner has a raven story: a particular game a certain pair of birds play, a clever trick performed at the perfect moment, an unsettlingly watchful individual bird.

This reputation for intelligence and charm is well deserved, says Environment Yukon conservation biologist Cameron Eckert. They are, he says, “the smartest of birds with a complex social structure.”

“Both recent and First Nations cultures have a reverence for ravens in the North.”

Ravens are unusually astute problem solvers, capable of taking cues from humans, he says. For example, if there is a bird’s nest — a possible food source for ravens, who love the eggs of other bird species, as any chicken farmer will tell you — and a person stops to look up at it, a raven is capable of noting this interest and will come back when the person is gone to check it out, Eckert says.

Continued  

Ravens can plan ahead, similar to humans and great apes

Date: July 13, 2017

Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science

Summary: Despite previous research that indicates such behaviors are unique to humans and great apes, a new study shows that ravens, too, can plan ahead for different types of events , and further, that they are willing to forgo an immediate reward in order to gain a better one in the future.

Continued

An act of 'unkindness'? Calls to cull ravens that peck sheep to death

The common raven is being held responsible for an upsurge in attacks on ewes and lambs, sparking calls for a relaxation on the rules on shooting them

Gerry Braiden, Local Government Correspondent

HERITAGE and wildlife bodies are facing calls to give more powers to kill ravens amid claims the bird is the biggest predatory threat to young lambs.

Farmers have claimed the common raven stalks 'in lamb' ewes in flocks of more than 30, attacking the eyes, mouth and other soft tissue of the mother and forcing it to lose its unborn young whilst in a state of shock.

The bird has also been accused of swooping in flocks onto ewes with twins to split one of the lambs, leading to the killing of both the mother and one of her offspring.

Calls for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the RSPB to relax the rules on the killing of the bird, which has around 7500 breeding pairs in the UK, have been backed by several hundred people, mostly understood to be involved in agriculture and several of whom have claimed small farm holding cannot sustain the financial hit from the raven attacks.

But the RSPB said such a move would leave the move ravens open to local extinction, while SNH said any permission to shoot at the bird would simply be to deter them rather than any cull.

The petition calling for 'general licences' to be issued for the killing of ravens was instigated by 'pest control shooter' Danny Bissett who said there had been an upsurge in attacks on ewes and lambs, in part because the bird has natural predators and that it holds a protected status.

His petition states: "The manner in which colonies of the Common Raven have been allowed to grow, uncontrolled would call into question whether the RSPB and SNH have any idea as to what is being witnessed on the ground on a daily basis throughout the farming community, which is massed flocks of this species targeting both in lamb ewes and new born lambs.

"Currently demonstrated instances where SNH have issued landowners with a licence to take two Ravens when the issue is a flock of thirty is laughable and in no way meet the requirements of those who face multiple deaths of their livestock on a daily basis."

Continued ...

Ravens Know When Food-Thieving Rivals Are Watching

by Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | February 02, 2016 02:08pm ET

In Norse mythology, two ravens named Huginn and Munnin — "Thought" and "Memory" — employ these faculties as Odin's emissaries, acting as the god's eyes and ears on Earth and reporting back to him about whatever they observe. Even in common ravens, problem-solving, decision-making and remembering past experiences are traits that scientists recognize as highly developed.

Now scientists have found that ravens seem to know when they're being watched by a rival that might steal from them, and then take steps to hide their food.

Previous behavior studies with scrub jays, which are raven relatives, showed that they could interpret other bird's thieving intentions — if they spied another jay watching them while they had food, they hid the food away.

Continued ...

Ravens cooperate, but not with just anyone

Ravens detect cheaters in cooperation

Date:October 7, 2015

Source:University of Vienna

Several recent studies have already revealed that ravens are among the most intelligent species of birds and even species in general. The cognitive biologists from the University of Vienna now add cooperation the ravens' already impressive resume. "From the wild, it was already known that ravens are able to cooperate when, for example, mobbing predators. But using an experimental set-up working with captive ravens now allowed us to investigate, how exactly they do so," says lead-author Jorg Massen.

In the experiment two ravens had to simultaneously pull the two ends of one rope to slide a platform with two pieces of cheese into reach. If, however, only one individual would pull, the rope would slip through the loops on the platform and the birds were left with the rope and without cheese. Without any training the ravens spontaneously solved this task and cooperated successfully. However, it turned out that they didn't do equally well with everybody, and that they rather work together with friends than with enemies.

Continued ...

Ravens sabotage others' bonding activities

Presented by

Michelle Douglass

Ravens are renowned for their intelligence and sophisticated social behaviour. But a new study has revealed a previously unknown strategy among the social-climbing corvids.

Ravens attempt to prevent others forming alliances that might lead to them becoming future competitors.

In raven society, individuals may gain power by forming coalitions. “The hierarchical structure among the ravens is highly dependent on their bonding status,” explains research team member Dr Jorg Massen from the University of Vienna’s Department of Cognitive Biology.

Within this hierarchy, established 'bonded' birds are further up the social ladder than those in the process of making bonds, known as 'loosely bonded' birds. At the bottom of the social hierarchy are birds with no specific bonds, these are known as 'nonbonded' individuals.

Read on ...

Ravens rule Idaho's artificial roosts

Date:

August 11, 2014

Source:

Wildlife Conservation Society

Summary:

A new study has explored how habitat alterations, including the addition of energy transmission towers, affect avian predators nesting in sagebrush landscapes. Researchers compared nesting habitat selection between Common Ravens and three raptor species commonly found in sagebrush ecosystems: Red-tailed Hawks, Swainson's Hawks, and Ferruginous Hawks.

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Ravens' return is bad news for water tower work, good news for bird lovers

APRIL 24, 2014 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014, 1:21 AM

BY JIM WRIGHT

SPECIAL TO THE RECORD

THE RECORD

In case you haven't heard, a family of nesting common ravens has been playing a bit of havoc in Fair Lawn.

A work crew was putting up the scaffolding to paint the town's gigantic water tower earlier this month when a ravens' nest was found, with two ravenettes inside.

The state Department of Environmental Protection was notified, and it quickly sent word that work had to be delayed until the little ones fledged, which takes four to six weeks. The cost of the postponement in additional scaffolding rental: $15,000 to $20,000.

But don't blame the ravens, and don't grouse about how much these huge, soot-colored birds are costing anybody. It's not their fault that humans did not check for nesting birds on such a large structure before undertaking this sort of project — especially during nesting season. The ravens would have been incubating the eggs for roughly three weeks before the scaffolding went up.

Instead, let's celebrate the wonderful North Jersey comeback of this big, beautiful, boisterous blackbird.

The first thing you need to know, according to raven maven Rick Radis of New Jersey Audubon, is that they are arguably the smartest birds in the world.

"When you watch them interact with each other, other birds, and the world at large, you know you are observing intelligent beings. Plus they soar like hawks, and clearly like to play."

The second thing you need to know is that ravens are making a big comeback in the region. Radis, who keeps track of the ravens' presence statewide as part of a continuing study, says he knows of at least seven or eight nesting pairs in Bergen and Passaic counties, and possibly more, including two or three on the Palisades, several in the Ramapos and several in the Pequannock watershed.

See more at: 

More Ravens May Threaten Sensitive Native Bird Species

Wildlife Conservation Society

A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Idaho State University and the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that habitat fragmentation and the addition of makeshift perches such as transmission polls in sagebrush ecosystems are creating preferred habitat for common ravens that threaten sensitive native bird species, including greater sage grouse.

The study appears in the January issue of the journal The Condor: Ornithological Applications. Authors include Kristy Howe of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Idaho State University, Peter Coates of the U.S. Geological Survey, and David Delehanty of Idaho State University.

Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113041590/more-ravens-threaten-sensitive-native-bird-species-010814/#p3i7aC2u57X8XQMy.99

Changing fashions: Neanderthal man used bird feathers 'for decoration and ornaments'

Neanderthal man is likely to have used bird feathers to decorate himself, according to new research.

Evidence found in the cave homes of our evolutionary cousins, who were likely killed off 30,000 years ago as modern man stepped forward, suggests that feathers were stripped from the remains of birds, to perhaps be worn as decorative ornaments or early jewellery.

Gibraltar Museum researchers Clive Finlayson and Kimberly Brown studied bird bones found at European sites used by Neanderthal man - and found that bird wings containing large feathers had regularly been chopped and carved by the inhabitants.

The latest theory draws more credence to the suggestion that the early hominids had a strong sense of tradition and culture.



Continued:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2204959/Changing-fashions-Neanderthal-man-used-bird-feathers-decoration-ornaments.html?ito=feeds-newsxml