For the past 50 years, international animal cognition research has focused on how tool use is related to animal intelligence. But new research casts doubt on long-held assumptions.
Kea were able to correctly guess the most probable scenarios, by evaluating various physical and social cues. Previously, only great apes and humans were known to be able to understand probability.
More than 620 million years of evolution separate crows from humans, but the birds show that they can plan three steps ahead.
Romana Gruber
Alex Taylor, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
New Caledonian crows are famous for using tools to reach a reward. Now scientists have confirmed they can plan several steps ahead, like a chess player contemplating a series of moves.
As machines get ever more complex as we strive to make them complete more complex tasks, it’s time to ask again: will they ever be able to think? But what is thinking anyway?
All the better for hearing you with.
Boris Roessler/EPA
Sometimes it may seem like your dog doesn’t want to listen. But in our study, however, we’ve found that he may understand more than he lets on. Human speech is complex, communicating not only words but…
Macaque monkeys grow up with their mothers and are often not familiar with their fathers. But they can recognise the paternal side of the family even without ever being introduced to them, according to…
An elephant that supposedly cried tears when it was being rescued from an abusive home where it had been captive for 50 years created much excitment on social media. The experience of being cut loose from…
Smarter chimpanzees owe much of their extra intelligence to genes.
Gemma Stiles/Flickr
Not all chimpanzees are created equal. Not only are some more intelligent than others, but about half of this variation is genetically inherited, according to research published today in Current Biology…
A finch, doing its own dirty laundry with pesticides.
Sarah A. Knutie
Darwin’s finches, a group of 14 species found only in the Galapagos Islands, are perhaps most well known as one of the inspirations for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. A classic…
The drongo and babbler look different, but one can masterfully impersonate the other.
Tom Flowers
In Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf, the boy warns farmers of imaginary wolves threatening their flocks just to laugh at the sight of them running to the rescue for no reason. Of course, when the…
Humans and their primate cousins are well known for their intelligence and social abilities. You hear them called bird-brained, but birds have demonstrated a great deal of intelligence in many tasks. However…