![]() But crows, chimpanzees, and bees are all much more closely related to life forms that have not attracted attention for their intelligence. And bees are thought to have had a common ancestor with crows and chimpanzees 600 million years ago. According to Cepelewicz, crows and chimpanzees are thought to have last had a common ancestor 300 million years ago. The main thing to see here is that problem-solving intelligence peaks among some life forms that are not at all closely related. ‘I don’t think that animals use numerosity zero as a quantity in their day-to-day living,’” If things were otherwise, they would be able to think things humans can think - and they clearly can’t.Īs neurobiologist Andreas Nieder tells Cepelewicz, he “doesn’t see a pressing need for animals to understand zero as a numerosity, since viewing it as an absence should usually suffice. It works or it doesn’t, without abstraction. ![]() Concepts are abstractions the arithmetic that the crow, the monkey, the bee, and many other life forms do is utilitarian. It’s not clear however, that such a finding means that the crow understands the concept of zero or of any other number. How Far Does Their Number Sense Go?” at Quanta (August 9, 2021) The paper is open access. “We see exactly the same responses, the same type of code, represented in the crow brain as in the monkey brain.” Jordana Cepelewicz, “ Animals Count and Use Zero. “From a physiological point of view, this fits in beautifully,” Nieder said. Recordings of the crows’ brain activity during these tasks revealed that neurons in a region of their brain called the pallium represent zero as a quantity alongside other numerosities, just as is found in the primate prefrontal cortex. And in a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience in June, researchers reported that crows can do it, too… In fact, experiments have shown that both monkeys and honeybees know how to treat zero as a numerosity, placing it on a mental number line much as they would numerosity one or two. Do crows understand the concept of zero?.One African grey parrot, Alex (1976–2007), became famous for his ability to learn words after intense training. That’s all the more remarkable when we consider that chimpanzees in another study could not figure that out. Goffin’s cockatoos also whittle tree branches into knife and spoon-like utensils for piercing fruit stones. University of Birmingham, “ Golfing cockatoos reveal ability to use combined tools” at ScienceDaily (February 8, 2022) The paper is open access. Three of the cockatoos figured out how to use the stick to manoeuvre the ball into the right position to release the treat - showing a high level of tool innovation. This in turn releases a cashew nut for the bird. The birds had to manipulate a ball through a hole into a closed box, and then use a stick to push the ball to one side of the box where it triggers a trapdoor mechanism. ![]() In their experiment, the team devised a game of golf for one species of bird, the Goffin’s cockatoo, which is known for its problem solving skills and its ability to use single tools such as sticks to open up nut and seed shells.
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