Intelligence nation increasingly revealed through the study of birds. Parrot African gray has great verbal skills, scrub jay birds have a remarkable memory, while the New Caledonian crow has the ability to use the equipment. Now, the scientists succeeded in proving that the pigeons are also good at math.
According to a study conducted by Dr Damian Scarf and his team from the University of Otago, birds have the ability to count, sort abstract numbers from the smallest to the biggest, from 1 to 9. This result is surprising because similar capabilities previously thought to exist only in primates nation.The results showed that pigeons can understand that two is greater than one, and three is greater than two.
To obtain these results, the scientists initially trained pigeons with 35 sets of images set. Each with one, two, and three objects of different colors and shapes. Furthermore, pigeons are faced with a bigger set of objects without trained to examine whether they are still able to rank them.
The results showed that pigeons can understand that two is greater than one, and three is greater than two. Even without training, pigeons are also proven to understand that six is ​​greater than five, and so on. This homing ability to match the ability of rhesus monkeys that had been studied by the same method in the 1990s.
"Our findings add to the evidence that the dove is a species of bird that has a great mental ability," says Scarf, Physorg quoted on Thursday (22/12/2011).
Research published in the journal Science on Thursday (22/12/2011), also provide evidence that the birds are not less intelligent primates.
Scarf, as described New York Times, said the ability of birds and primates in calculating obtained through evolution. The ancestors of birds and primates that lived 300 million years ago did have numeracy skills are then derived. Scarf bet, this ability is certainly beneficial for the two nations animal.
Scarf research published in the journal Science, published Friday (23/11/2011). Until now not known whether pigeons are able to develop a set of objects of larger amount, more than 9. However, research is still going to continue, including pigeons observe brain activity while it is counting.