Bird Brains

Research published in the journal SCIENCE in 2020 raises the possibility that crows have mental abilities formerly thought of as restricted to our species and other higher primates:

Crows Are Self-Aware

It's been known for a while that corvids (crows, ravens, jays, etc.), like monkeys and apes, use tools and recognize faces. These birds bring gifts to people they like and never forget people who injure or offend them. Experiments show, however, that they also apparently think about their own thoughts. A brain structure called the pallium, performing the same function as the cerebral cortex in mammals, holds densely packed neurons in greater quantity than in even some much larger animals such as elephants. This arrangement makes up for the smaller body and brain size of birds. The firing of neurons in the crows' brains during the experiment described in the article suggests that crows think about problems in somewhat the same way we do.

Parrots are highly intelligent, too. They don't just "parrot" human speech but often utter words in the proper context, such as asking for what they want or saying "Hello" when people arrive but not when they leave. As the famous African Grey named Alex demonstrated, parrots can work with numbers, too. They also pass some intelligence tests on the same level as five-year-old children:

Parrots Pass Classic Test of Intelligence

Here's a Wikipedia article on bird intelligence:

Bird Intelligence

For me, one exciting implication of these facts is that we now realize an animal doesn't require a large brain to be intelligent. Sapient aliens on other planets wouldn't have to resemble us in size or shape. Imagine a world dominated by brainy birds. With wings instead of arms, birds have limitations on their ability to use tools. What if they evolved with six limbs, though, like all the higher animals in the manga series A CENTAUR'S LIFE? Birds on a planet where the standard higher-life-form body plan includes six limbs rather than four could have legs, wings, and hands. Thus they could develop a civilization with material artifacts recognizable to us as products of higher intellect.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Eggs and Equity

Recently on a wildlife program in the PLANET EARTH series I viewed a segment about clownfish. In addition to their sexual mutability, which enables the largest male in a group to transform to female if the adult female dies, they display interesting parental behavior. Clownfish live in symbiotic partnerships with sea anemones, nesting among the anemone's tentacles, deadly to most other sea life. The anemone "fortress" shelters the fertilized eggs, for which the male takes responsiblity, tending and guarding them. If the dominant female doesn't find his level of care acceptable, though, she'll reject him in favor of one of the rival males lurking in wait. So the devoted father in FINDING NEMO is true to life in a way.

As far as paternal child care in marine life is concerned, everybody knows about the prime example, the seahorse. The female lays eggs in the male's pouch, where he fertilizes them and carries them until they hatch. Mr. Seahorse, not his mate, undergoes pregnancy. They appear to practice monogamy through at least one breeding season.

On another episode of the same series (PLANET EARTH, BLUE PLANET, etc.) a tiny tree frog is shown depositing his mate's fertilized eggs in small water reservoirs in leaves. To provide nourishment, the female lays an unfertilized egg in the water drop, while the male guards the eggs and tadpoles.

Most people have probably watched documentaries about penguin parents raising their young on the Antarctic ice. The father keeps the single egg warm on top of his feet while his mate is feeding out at sea. When she returns, she relieves him and takes over the care of the chick while he goes in search of food.

Some birds, rather than tending their chicks as monogamous partners, practice polyandry. The female controls a large territory in which she mates with several males, each one incubating a clutch of eggs in a different nest. She helps each of her mates defend his individual nesting territory.

These animals and many others illustrate the fact that in oviparous species the female isn't "tied down" by pregnancy and lactation. When the young hatch from eggs, either parent or both can guard and care for the eggs and offspring. If otherwise convenient, the female can leave parenting duties entirely to the male without jeopardizing the welfare of their children. Therefore, a society of intelligent, oviparous aliens might practice very different sexual and child-rearing customs from ours. In a high-tech culture, the option of sheltering the eggs in an incubator, terrarium, or aerated aquarium (depending on the species) could even allow both parents to combine childrearing with other pursuits. They might have completely egalitarian gender roles or even female dominance.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Bird Brains

Following up last week's post on animal intelligence, I want to suggest that you pick up a copy of the February NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. It includes an article titled "Bird Brainiacs." The conventional dismissive reference to "bird brains" has been radically overturned in recent years. Originally, the avian brain, about the size of a nut, was thought to be severely limited by its lack of a neocortex. Now it's been discovered that birds' brains are much more complex than previously assumed, although structured differently from those of mammals. The article refers to the famous gray parrot genius Alex, who demonstrated that parrots can use English words in the appropriate context rather than simply "parroting" human speech. Parrotlets in South America are among the species that have a kind of "language" of their own, assigning "names" to individuals in the flock. Also described are crows that trade gifts with a girl in Seattle. Experiments show that bird pairs can cooperate to solve problems. Some birds fashion tools out of sticks and other objects. They occasionally show evidence of planning ahead, by stashing their manufactured objects for later use. No wonder some biologists call birds "feathered apes."

That birds, with their small bodies and brains, can be so intelligent makes alien creatures such as the treecats in David Weber's Honor Harrington series more believable. Treecats have human-level intelligence despite being about the size of Earth's domestic felines.

Other items of interest in this issue: The cover article reveals how thoroughly high-tech surveillance already pervades our society, explores its future potential, and discusses the positive and negative sides of this phenomenon. A short piece called "The Parent Trap" features highly realistic robotic babies used in high-school sex education classes. Reading about this program reminded me of human-looking sex robots discussed on a talk show I recently caught a few minutes of (on the TV at the blood bank) and the robots already used in elder care in Japan. Concerning the sex androids, naturally my first thought was what would happen if they awoke to sentience and revolted against their condition of, essentially, slavery.

Here's an article about the Japanese caregiving robots in a variety of shapes and sizes:

Robot Caregivers

Happy Candlemas / Imbolc / Groundhog Day! I've had it with winter already; how about you? In some countries, the Christmas season traditionally ended on Candlemas. So I'm perfectly justified in still displaying the wreath on the door. (Actually, I often keep it up almost until Ash Wednesday, but I can't cite a tradition for that.)

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt