For centuries scientists dismissed birds as dumb based on
physical differences in their brains. How wrong we were.
Saturday 5 November 2016 09.53 GMT Last modified on
Monday 7 November 2016 15.34 GMT
When Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees making tools in 1960,
humans lost their self-aggrandizing status as the world’s only tool makers. Now
scientists are beginning to realise there may be much more ‘intelligent life’
in the universe than previously thought, but it’s just here: on our planet.
Since Goodall’s discovery, researchers have found numerous other mammals
displaying high levels of intelligence, including the great apes, elephants,
dolphins, orcas and many canine species. But only in the last couple decades
has scientists’ attention turned to intelligence in non-mammals, including
birds.
“Studies of avian intelligence have been hampered by the old
fashioned idea that birds are stupid, and not worth considering in terms of
intelligence,” said Nathan Emery, author of the new book, Bird
Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence and senior lecturer at
Queen Mary: University of London.
An in-depth look at recent research and fascinating lab
experiments, the book published by Ivy Press
overturns any notion that birds are somehow dumb. Instead, it argues with an
overwhelming amount of evidence that a number of bird species should be
considered more as “feathered apes.”
The idea that birds are unintelligent was initially proposed
by looking at the brains of birds. Birds lack a
cerebral cortex, which allowed scientists for decades to assume they were
incapable of any higher thinking. However, researchers now know that a
different part of the bird brain – the pallium – has evolved to do many of the
same tasks as the cerebral cortex.
“Avian and mammalian brains seem to be functioning the same
way, but interestingly their hardware is completely different,” said Emery, who
noted that bird brains generally have shorter connections between specific
parts of their brains than mammals.
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