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Are we really smarter than birds?
Author: Alec Basson
Published: 23/03/2017

Are humans and other mammals really smarter than birds? 

Well not really according to Prof Onur Güntürkün Professor for Biopsychology at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany and also a fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS). He delivered the second  STIAS lecture for 2017 on Wednesday (22 March).

Güntürkün said the way birds solve cognitive problems is virtually identical to the way we mammals do. He added that there is a high level of cognitive similarities between birds and mammals.

"Contrary to the classic view of neuroscience that we mammals should be the only group of animals that have complex cognitive abilities, birds can also do smart stuff."

"Test have shown that magpies with a brain size of 10 gram reach the same level of object permanence (an object is hidden but you know it is still there) as humans. They reached it earlier and faster than we do."

"The most interesting thing is that they make the same mistakes that children make during these tests."

"We could also show that magpies can recognise themselves in the mirror. These birds were not conditioned to do so."

According to Güntürkün this is remarkable since as far as we know only only three mammalian species – chimpanzees, humans, orangutans  – recognize themselves in the mirror.IMG_9698-smoothed.jpg

Güntürkün also pointed to New Caledonion crows that make hooks out of natural material and sharpen them to catch their food.

"A crow named Betty was able to bend a straight wire in laboratory to retrieve food from a tube."  

Güntürkün said corvids and parrots performed better than monkeys and chimpanzees in a delayed gratification test which is similar to the marshmallow test done with small children in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

"Research has also shown that pigeons are even able to learn English words."

Güntürkün said birds do this despite their small brains and the absence of a cortex (the structure surrounding the brain of human and other mammals). The cortex plays a key role in, among others, memory, attention, thought and language.

According to Güntürkün birds have an area in their brains that, although not homologous to prefrontal cortex in mammals, has nearly identical connectivity patterns and is highly similar to the prefrontal cortex in nearly all aspects. The prefrontal cortex is the area of the brain involved in problem solving, complex thoughts and emotions

"The pigeon connectome (a comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain) is highly similar to the connectomes of humans, monkeys, and cats."

Güntürkün said the fact that birds also have a higher density of neurons reduces the gap between bird and mammalian brains.  

"When comparing birds and mammals we should not use brain size or the number of neurons to predict cognition," he added.

  • Main photo: Pixabay
  • Photo 1: Prof Onur Güntürkün speaking at the STIAS lecture. Photographer: Justin Alberts