Birds are really awesome...

[summer_jackel]

...and corvids are really damn smart. I'm sure that many of you would be interested in this awesome newsclip about tool use by captive rooks under experimental conditions. I would really love to read a more scholarly or at least more detailed description of this work, and maybe when I'm not incredibly tired I will scour the internets for more. Still, way to go, lovely, smart little rooks!

On that subject, I obtained Mr. Conureface and Miz Kaya a new foraging toy, sort of a rubber mesh oval cage that I plan to fill with treats, which they have to pull out of the holes in the toy. Petco was selling this thing for birds for ~$6, but I noticed the exact thing, only slightly larger and sans chain, marketed for dogs, in the discount bin for ~$3. Score! I wish the local pet stores carried more foraging type toys; I don't buy much on line anymore. When I do the big toy rearrange tomorrow, I will see what Osbick does with some of the ones Gavin and Kaya have figured out.

That's about all. Other than We, the obnoxious little dragons .

Comments

[noahbrand.livejournal.com]

On corvidae, my cat Frankenstein once brought in a full-grown raven. On examination, the bird turned out to not be dead, just stunned. I know it's not really possible to read or translate bird facial expressions without anthropomorphizing way too much, but I swear to god that raven looked deeply embarrassed, even as I wrapped it in a towel, took it back outside, and set it free to fly away, still dazed.

I just figure there was some kind of dialogue in that complicated raven language that day, something like:

"Hey man, is it true you got taken down by an eight-pound housecat?"

"Uh... no! It was, um, bikers. Like ten bikers. Big guys, with tire chains and baseball bats and like that. Real badasses, but I got away."

"Yeah? 'Cause I heard that--"

"Shut UP, dude."

[cphoenix.livejournal.com]

On animal smarts in general, I wonder what species the following experiment has been done with, and with what results...

Train a pair of animals to obtain food by spatially signaled tasks - e.g. push the flashing button in a row of buttons, without pushing any other buttons. Then, restrain one of the pair, blindfold the other, and see if they can communicate well enough to get the food. "OK, walk forward, edge left, no not that far left, OK, stretch your nose - BEEP! nom nom nom"

I bet dolphins could do it. Maybe sheepdogs could. I wonder about corvids and parrots. I wonder which primates could do it. And, of course, what about cephalopods? (Instead of blindfolding them, you'd probably have to use restraints and baffles to restrict vision and motion relative to the task but not each other.)

For extra fun, add a time delay / memory task, or add complicated spatial tasks. "Go through the tunnel, then around the other tunnel, then over the table..."

Chris