DailyDirt: Smarter Than The Average Bear Cat... Bird?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Animals aren't as dumb as you might think, and the more we study our pets -- the more we find that we may not just be anthropomorphizing our favorite animals. Some animals definitely have personalities, and some can exhibit some pretty complex cognitive skills. If we can understand more and more animal brains, maybe we'll be able to figure out our own brains, too, someday. Here are just a few things to remember about cats, fish and birds. After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.
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Filed Under: animal cognition, biology, birds, brains, cats, fish, intelligence, smart animals, tool


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  1. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 22 Jun 2016 @ 5:16pm

    Why Can Bird Brains Be So Much More Efficient Than Mammal Brains?

    There is an idea that birds can be smarter than most mammals, in spite of having smaller brains, because their lungs are so much more efficient. Mammals have to breathe in and out through the same passages, whereas birds have separate in and out passages.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    afn29129 (profile), 22 Jun 2016 @ 5:22pm

    Fish memory. Fish attention span

    I'm not too sure how long a fish's memory is but their attention span is longer than the average teenager on his/her smartphone. About 8 seconds.

    http://www.cnet.com/news/goldfish-the-actual-fish-not-the-crackers-may-have-a-better-attenti on-span-than-humans/

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2016 @ 5:54pm

    Re: Why Can Bird Brains Be So Much More Efficient Than Mammal Brains?

    Time to start breeding hyper-intelligent parrots...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 22 Jun 2016 @ 6:02pm

    Re: About 8 seconds.

    I think it was Bill Bailey who did a joke about this, that a goldfish bowl had to be big enough so the fish would take 8 seconds to swim around it. And then they would be continually going, as they went round:

    “Oh, what a wonderful view!”

    “Oh, what a wonderful view!”

    “Oh, what a wonderful view!”

    If you made it slightly smaller, say 7 seconds, then it would be

    “Oh, what a wonderful view!”

    “Hang on, I’ve seen this bef--Oh, what a wonderful view!”

    “Hang on, I’ve seen this bef--Oh, what a wonderful view!”

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    JoeCool (profile), 22 Jun 2016 @ 7:57pm

    Smart birds - dumb reporters

    By doing so, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel and her team at Vanderbilt University discovered that avian brains contain more neurons per square inch than mammalian brains.


    That would be per CUBIC inch.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 22 Jun 2016 @ 9:03pm

    Re: CUBIC inch.

    Odd that a country that fought a war of independence against the British Empire still clings so fondly to imperial units of measurement...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    Mason Wheeler (profile), 23 Jun 2016 @ 6:53am

    Re: Re: CUBIC inch.

    Not at all. It wasn't their measuring that we objected to.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 23 Jun 2016 @ 1:26pm

    Can we make a corollary to "animals are smarter than we think"

    ...to admit that humans are stupider than we think?

    I am sure many of our blunders come from presuming we're smarter than we are.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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