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Magpies Are Self-Aware

Posted by kdawson on from the who-you-callin'-birdbrain dept.

FireStormZ writes "Magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror, confounding the notion that self-awareness is the exclusive preserve of humans and a few higher mammals. It had been thought only four species of apes, bottlenose dolphins, and Asian elephants shared the human ability to recognize their own bodies in a mirror. But German scientists reported on Tuesday that magpies, a species with a brain structure very different from mammals, could also identify themselves. It had been thought that the neocortex brain area found in mammals was crucial to self-recognition. Yet birds, which last shared a common ancestor with mammals 300 million years ago, don't have a neocortex, suggesting that higher cognitive skills can develop in other ways."

5 of 591 comments (clear)

  1. Crows, for one by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Informative

    Crows have been observed making tools and using them.

    Birds are in general a lot smarter than we've given them credit for. It might be time to rethink the term 'bird brain'.

    1. Re:Crows, for one by TedRiot · · Score: 4, Informative

      I remember reading somewhere that they have quite advanced learning mechanisms. It is enough that one of them gets hit by a car and the rest who saw the incident know not to get hit by cars.

  2. Re:Magpies are evil. by Bob54321 · · Score: 3, Informative

    And for a bit of bird watcher trivia... Australian magpies are in a completely different family than their European and American counterparts.

    --
    :(){ :|:& };:
  3. Re:I knew magpies are quite "smart" by TGoddard · · Score: 3, Informative

    Artificial neural networks bear little to no resemblance to biological ones. Modeling a brain is a bit more difficult than training a system of artificial 'neurons' to approximate a (possibly unknown) function.

    Biological neural networks are comprised of many more units of much higher complexity and containing much more variety than we could hope to simulate even on a tiny scale yet, even if we had a list of all the types of neurons and connections required. Add to this that the cells themselves exist in a chemical environment where oxygen, hormones and surrounding cells play a key role in the whole system and our efforts to digitise ourselves are, with the present state of technology, totally and utterly feeble.

    Simulating an avian brain is going to be no easier - we still need all the knowledge about brain structure that we simply don't have. We are probably in fact closer to being able to simulate our own brains - a lot more research has gone in to our brains than those of Magpies.

  4. Re:Looping behaviour by Spatial · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thanks for the assist. With a little googling I found its genus, the Sphex or 'Digger Wasp'.