General > Biology
Crows are pretty damn smart
EricL:
We got crows and eagles (bald and golden) by the truckload here in the PNW. Eagles are good at fishing, but otherwise they're not that bright. I've seen a couple of crows hound an eagle and steal its food dozens of times. Last summer, I saw an eagle taking bites out of a wounded baby harbour seal on a beach in the San Jaun Islands. The seal probably got nicked by a boat prop. Mommy seal lumberred over to baby, barking aggressivly at the eagle the whole time. It didn't pay any attention until mommy got close enough to bite it and shred a wing so bad it couldn't fly. If a 200 pound barking harbor seal can sneak up on you on a beach, you ain't the brightest bird in the aviary.
Testlund:
--- Quote from: EricL ---If a 200 pound barking harbor seal can sneak up on you on a beach, you ain't the brightest bird in the aviary.
--- End quote ---
You got that right. How many times haven't we seen magpies teasing cats knowing how to keep the perfect distance to manage to fly away just in time. They're not crows though but belongs to the same group of birds. Maybe crows tease cats too, I don't know. I say just the ability to adapt to a human created environment got to be a sign of intelligence, because human development have happend to short a time to be a genetic adaption from animals.
Testlund:
Maybe we can expect something like this in the near future. Hehe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2TKSZDWqIA...feature=related
ikke:
--- Quote from: Testlund ---I say just the ability to adapt to a human created environment got to be a sign of intelligence, because human development have happend to short a time to be a genetic adaption from animals.
--- End quote ---
If you refer to the video you linked yes.. otherwise there are two flaws:
a) you assume a human created environment requires fundamental adaptation. This is not necessarily true. Falcons have started to live in mid city, coming from the forest edge. The fundamentals of their ecosystem (from their point of view) may not be all that different: they need high safe places to breed, and enough prey in striking distance. A ridge of a building with pidgeons feeding of city scrap qualifies as well as a tree and a field with mice. Maybe even better as the first more and more takes over from the second.
B ) Don't underestimate the power (and speed) of evolution. Darwin's Dreampond: Drama in Lake Victoria by Tijs Goldschmidt describes (amongst other things) the collapse of an ecosystem and ends with signs of recovery by evolutionary adaptation
Edit The difference between and B ) is
Numsgil:
It's also interesting to note the effects of domestication. Generally speaking, when animals are domesticated, they tend to develop neoteny, that is, they keep juvenile characteristics in to adult hood. eg: dogs with floppy ears and cute faces. A diminished intelligence seems to go along with that in some cases. (There's a funny farside comic about this, actually. With wolves commenting that their friends doppy expression and blank stare must mean he's been domesticated).
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