A year of training is all it took for pigeons at the University of Otago in Dunedin, NZ to count just as well as primates, the animal kingdom’s equivalent of Will Hunting.
During experiments run by Otaga fellow Dr Damian Scarf, the pigeons were able to perform in the same league as monkeys when ordering groups of objects from lowest to highest. Pigeons of course don’t have hands, so they just pecked out the order instead.
Their abilities remained high even with the introduction of objects with differing sizes, shapes and colours. They can’t manage counts greater than nine at the moment and it’s not clear whether they can do better than this.
A counting pigeon is impressive, sure, but it doesn’t have anything on Alex the grey parrot. Not only could he talk, researchers believe his level of intelligence rivalled that of a five-year old. So he probably asked for a lot of Pokemon games, then. Sadly, Alex passed away in 2007.
Image: William van der Vliet
Graeme
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 2:02 PMIt is the University of OTAGO, not Otaga
Lyndon
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 2:14 PMBah, they’re Kiwis… like it matters.
Dennison
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 2:20 PMIt does matter, if they search the wrong educational institution on google maps, they might find a giant penis. :-)
Logan Booker
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 2:35 PMThanks Graeme, I’ve corrected the name.
Peter
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 4:21 PMIt still says Otaga in the first line of the second paragraph. :/
Brad
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 5:14 PMIs the article supposed to say “Birds teach Kiwi’s to count?”
MotorMouth
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 9:27 AMThat seems more likely to me.
Osiris Fox
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 12:25 PMThey have a university in New Zealand???
andrew
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 12:31 PMYes they do have one, I’m in oz like half of NZ, however Dunners is my home town.
You’ll find it was actually the first uni in NZ founded in 1869. Also note NZ is now top in education as per the UN human development index ;)