A new study suggests that some birds are smarter than we thought, especially ducklings!
The study was conducted by zoologists Antone Martinho III and Alex Kacelnik at Oxford University, using newborn ducklings. They found out that newborn ducklings are capable of comprehending complex concepts such as "same" and "different" -- abstractions that we typically think are beyond the capacity of most animals.
The experiment relied on that animals' ability to imprint -- to identify such significant figures as their mothers, right after birth. This is the reason why ducklings tend to stick with their "mother" which is supposed to be the first thing that they'll see after being hatched.
In the experiment, Martinho and Kacelnik introduced brightly colored shapes that circled above the ducklings' pens like objects on a mobile for 24 hours. Some pairs had identical shapes while others are mismatched.
Next, the baby birds were exposed to two new pairs of objects, one with the same shapes while the other with different ones. Majority of ducklings followed the pair of shapes that had the same relationship as the pair with which they were primed.
Same principle was held when the researchers tweaked the experiment, alternating the color of the two objects in the pairing rather than the shape. Ducklings that had been primed with objects of the same color opted to follow a different one-color pair later in the experiment; those that had been primed to recognize a pair with two colors did the same.
The results suggest that ducklings are able to recognize not only shape and color but also sameness and difference -- abstract concepts that require a complex understanding.
Previous studies have found that other animals such as primates and crows are also capable of understanding such concepts. But they have to be taught. The ducklings, on the other hand, already developed such ability right after birth.
Source: The Washington Post
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