This week was full of feel-good stories. London came through and helped the Business Cares Food Drive smash its goal to pieces. The community of White Hills rallied around a family of five that lost their home to fire. But there was one tale that stood out among all others for making me smile.
Scientists say they have proven that pigeons can count as well as monkeys can.
Here’s how they proved it. Using treats as rewards, scientists in New Zealand taught some pigeons how to put items grouped in lots from one to three in numerical order. Then they showed the pigeons larger groups of things, up to 9. The birds then routinely, and far too accurately to call it chance, put the items into numerical order. They could actually “reason” that 8 things were more than 7 things and so on. The best part? They arranged the items by tapping on a computer screen with their beaks!
Until this study it was believed that only monkeys could accomplish this and now researchers think there may be a lot of other critters out there that are smart enough to master this math.
Pigeons. Who knew? We may have to change the meaning of “bird brain” to the complete opposite of what it currently implies.
….so when I’m being called a “peckerhead”, it’s not a bad thing, right? (I tapped this response with my beak!)