Magpies Are Self-Aware

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."

Comments

I knew magpies are quite "smart"

[blind biker]

It has been known that magpies can solve various kinds of mechanical puzzles, much better than most (all?) other birds and even mammals. Now this isn't related to self-avareness, I guess, but it is quite interesting nonetheless.

Re:I knew magpies are quite "smart"

[mcvos]

Several other birds are also known for pretty amazing intellectual feats (symbolic language is a pretty famous one), considering their brain size.

It's probably because of those scary velociraptor genes.

Re:I knew magpies are quite "smart"

[kdemetter]

It's not that much the brain size , as the brain size in proportion to the body. The bigger the body , the more brain mass is required to control the body.

So a small creature with a relatively big head , could be as smart as a human being or more.

A big creature with a small brain , would be completely dumb.

Re:I knew magpies are quite "smart"

[jambox]

I studied neural nets at University (years ago, I'm sure it's move on a lot since then) and this seems a hopeful turn-up.

Clearly, it'll be a very, very long time before there are computers with enough memory or power to model a mammalian brain. On the other hand, an avian brain seems to have extremely useful capabilities and is far, far more compact. Perhaps something useful can be inferred from the greater volume-to-power ratio of a magpie's grey matter?

Re:I knew magpies are quite "smart"

[maglor_83]

I saw that on TV so it may be wrong.

What?!

Re:I knew magpies are quite "smart"

[Hal_Porter]

Leave him alone! He's self aware and it probably took him ages to peck out the characters on his keyboard.

As a fellow magpie I understand his point perfectly.

Magpies are evil.

[acehole]

In Australia, when its nesting season for Magpies they swoop people who go within their territory. Now I had to walk a fair way to catch a bus which just happened to intersect with a couple of magpies. One particular time I had one swoop, peck and draw some blood on some demon birdesque fly-by. I ran and took shelter at a nearby mall and waited about 5 minutes or so. I saw other people walking around and assumed that the coast was clear and went on my merry way. However, said demon bird was waiting for me and attacked again. Why it didnt attack any of the other potential targets and instead wait for me I'll never know.

Re:Magpies are evil.

[totally bogus dude]

These stories are common, and my best guess is that they recognise individual people. Or at least, they think they do. I would guess that someone who they thought looked like you was at some stage a threat to them or their nest, maybe throwing rocks or otherwise exhibiting aggressive behaviour. After that, they'll start attacking them on sight to try to keep them away; and since you look similar enough, they treat you the same way. On the other hand, maybe it's even more general than that. Simply a way of walking, or particular shapes, or particularly colour combinations you wear, etc.

A friend of mine with twins has noticed that they will taken an instant liking or dislike to certain people, presumably based purely on how they look or sound. The assumption being that the babies are okay with people who resemble their family members, but get uncomfortable around people that look "strange". Maybe it's something similar to that.

We had magpies around for years because we used to feed them, and they'd nest in our yard sometimes and usually would nest pretty close by. In at least a decade of seeing them every day I've never had a problem with being swooped by them. The closest was one female magpie in particular that got very used to us over the years, and would make a habit of flying uncomfortably close in order to get attention. It was never aggressive though, merely a nuisance - like a dog that keeps hanging around right at your feet so you're always almost stepping on it. (It did that too.)

Re:Magpies are evil.

[Nursie]

Had a similar experience with crows.

I was walking through the park and obviously got too near a nest of something. I noticed two started to circle way above my head. My first thought was "Cool" because I was heavily into the goth thing at the time. After a few more feet they attacked. No pecking, but flapping wings in front of my face, diving at my head, that sort of stuff. Nobody else walking along that way was targeted.

People watching they would have seen a goth in a leather trenchcoat stumbling, waving his arms, running and yelling. Looking back, that must have been quite funny to watch.

Re:Magpies are evil.

[jollyreaper]

I saw other people walking around and assumed that the coast was clear and went on my merry way. However, said demon bird was waiting for me and attacked again. Why it didnt attack any of the other potential targets and instead wait for me I'll never know.

Tippi Hedren, is that you?

grey parrots as well

[fsiefken]

Lookup the intelligent grey parrots Alex or N'kisi, of which the intelligence has been compared to the intelligence of 6 year old human. Their intelligence might have evolved as a as "a consequence of their history of cooperative feeding as largely tree-dwelling birds in central Africa" (wikipedia: gray parrots). It might be that mirror neurons play an important role in the developmenet of intelligence: "A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting. These neurons have been directly observed in primates, and are believed to exist in humans and in some birds. In humans, brain activity consistent with mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex." (wikipedia mirror neuron).

Excellent news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can punish the thieving bastards by putting them in prison instead of just shooting them.

Crows, for one

[dreamchaser]

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'.

Re:Crows, for one

[PopeRatzo]

Birds are in general a lot smarter than we've given them credit for.

My chubby cat is not so impressed with the intelligence of the birds in our back yard.

Seriously, anyone who has ever had a parrot or macaw as a pet can tell you they're smarter than most people would think. And more social.

Re:Crows, for one

[SharpFang]

Don't give them all so much credit.

My "automatic vision systems" teacher gave an interesting lecture about research on hens. Hens are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of weasels (panic/run) and to sound (tweeting) of small chickens ("herd/care"). The researchers made a model of a weasel that was making the chicken noise. Hens exposed to this experienced software failure: they would freeze and stop reacting to all other external signals/impulses until the chirping weasel was removed. :)

Re:Crows, for one

[roaddemon]

I've always noticed that, despite their propensity for hanging around roadkill on busy highways, I've never seen a dead crow on the road.

Re:Crows, for one

[ShieldW0lf]

The reason we believe that animals aren't conscious, and are like little automaton, is because it allows us to treat them with callous disregard. Humans who are ideologically unbound from natural sympathy and empathy and treat other animals with callous disregard achieve dominance over their environment.

We do the same thing to the world itself. We are not OF this place, we are simply IN this place, temporarily, after which our soul will leave. So, we can treat the world itself with callous disregard, without consequence.

We also do this to other humans. They don't have a soul, only we have a soul. Therefore, we do not belittle ourselves when we belittle them, because we are so much more than they are, while they are simply creatures of the muck, like animals.

This ruthless perspective is an overwhelmingly effective tool. Therefore, it is the truth. The rest is just supporting mythology.

Re:Crows, for one

[TedRiot]

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.

Re:Crows, for one

[mcvos]

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.

In a pop-sci magazine I once saw a photo of a robin hovering over a pool, with a story about how it had learned to hunt like a kingfisher. It just sat there watching the kingfisher fish, and when it left, the robin tried the same technique, refining it as it figured out what worked and what didn't. For example, it had to hover over the deeper part of the water to chanse the fish to the shallower part.

I find it very hard to believe, but the magazine is pretty reputable. Must have been the Einstein of robins.

Re:Crows, for one

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

i think this is the same thing that made pigs, dogs and cows a lot more docile than their wild counterparts. selective breeding.

dumb chickens are less likely to escape, wich is good for farmers.

you don't have to make a complex chirping weasel model to brain-freeze a chicken. just hold its head close to a surface, then draw a straight line with a marker starting on its beak and extending about 30cm. the chicken will stay there hypnotized for a couple of minutes.

Re:Crows, for one

[ShieldW0lf]

Oh the irony of your post. Especially your "mythology" when you mention the "soul" 3 times in your post. Pray tell, where does this "soul" of which you speak go after we leave this place?

The point is that those tribes which have embraced this ideology have dominated the world, while those that did not were driven to extinction. It's evolution at work, just at a different level of granularity than what you can look at in a lab.

The whole concept of a "soul" exists for the purpose of supporting the perspective that we are aliens in this place, that we will go home through some mystical means when our vehicle here (our body) wears out, and we can do anything we like to the place while we're here, because it's alien and inconsequential.

Re:Crows, for one

[sm62704]

Don't give us all so much credit. There are a lot of things hard-wired into an animal's brain that comes from millions of years of evolution, and other things that come from the organism's experiences.

For instance, a heterosexual man can't help but look at a pretty girl, which annoys the hell out of their wives. When I stopped smoking, a year later when I didn't have any craving for tobacco whatever and had no desire to light a cigarette, nevertheless when I walked down the steps at work my hand automatically grabbed the shirt pocket that had held cigarettes all those years.

We are only another species of organism. There's nothing special about us; at least, no more than any other species. We have big brains, so what? We almost became extinct 70,000 years ago despite our big brains.

Re:Crows, for one

[value_added]

Don't give them all so much credit.

Hens are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of weasels (panic/run) and to sound (tweeting) of small chickens ("herd/care").

Slashdotters are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of the opposite sex (arousal/enlarged penises) and to sound (heavy breathing) of the their favourite bands ("tribal/belonging"). Don't give them all so much credit.

Employees are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to the arrival of their boss (panic/run) and to sound (yelling) of anyone in authority ("fear/flight"). Don't give them all so much credit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Setting aside the hand-wavy theories and taxonomies promoted by those in the social sciences, I'd say that such generalisations, while possibly interesting, are mostly meaningless. If a fairly accurate generalisation can be made, it's that our age-old insistence that we're somehow unique or different is repeatedly proven wrong, and the underlying hubris has interfered with our ability to understand not only ourselves, but the world around us.

Re:Crows, for one

[Whiteox]

I wonder what a Chicken BSOD would look like?
Maybe it's a driver issue instead?
Anyhow, who would you ring up for support?
The advantage of course having a chicken BSOD itself is that you can eat it.

Re:Crows, for one

[TummyX]

you don't have to make a complex chirping weasel model to brain-freeze a chicken. just hold its head close to a surface, then draw a straight line with a marker starting on its beak and extending about 30cm. the chicken will stay there hypnotized for a couple of minutes.

The chicken could be stunned because it is thinking: "WTF? Why is he drawing a straight line from my beak and onto the ground. Weird ass humans".

Re:Crows, for one

[galoise]

Although i am a hard-line meat eating humanist, i do think he has a point, and you have not been able to contradict him.

Apart from an species bias based on genetic composition, there's no clear cut criteria to define human (tool making and self awareness discarded). Now you propose, among others, i presume, city building, literature writing and movie directing as criteria. I have not done anything of the above, and apart from genetic similarity, i have no relation to anyone who has. Am I Human?

To put it differently: Who built cities? was it the worker? his part in city building is no more complex than the role performed by the crow using a tool. Maybe the architect? then his humanity is tied to a capacity for abstract design, but then again, there are many homo sapiens of whom we do not know if they posses such capacity. Are they to be considered human too? and if we have no proof of their capacity, on what basis should they be considered human?

In the end, the whole capacity-based point of view is flawed. It's impossible to determine now if any capacity chosen as criteria will not be replicated by some non-human agent in the future, be it because we discovered it or because we create it, so we end up with only two possible criteria: Genetics and Empathy. And both are arbitrary: In the strict sense, the concept of "species" is irrelevant form a genetic point of view, as argued by Dawkins in the Selfish Gene and the Extended Phenotype. And empathy is just a generalization and aggregation of a capacity based criteria, not to say it's subjective and not possible to state formally (e.g. some forms of disability produce repulsion, etc).

All in all, i think this is no trivial matter...

Re:Crows, for one

[morgan_greywolf]

Yah... and as I said to a girlfriend who once bemoaned the fact that my cat was good at catching birds.... when was the last time you saw a cat fly?

Last night when I threw him across the room for scratching me?

Re:Crows, for one

[Fishead]

I can attest that this works, and you are the first person outside of my family that I have heard it from.

I used to do that when I was giving the chore of separating the chicken from his head. I had an old beam that I would place the chicken on, stretch her neck out and draw a line away from her beak on some dirt on the beam. When you do that, the whole nervous system must be on pause because they don't even flap a wing after you cut their head off. Hmm... any biologists needing a research project?

Re:Crows, for one

[Smauler]

Nice theory, but I've seen loads of dead crows on the road, as well as pigeons which seem to love attempting to dive bomb my van. The other day I was driving along, and there was a pigeon pecking away at something in the middle of the road. I braked, expecting it to fly away, but it didn't, and I didn't have time to stop. I didn't feel any impact, so I looked in my rear view mirror, and it was still happily pecking away in the middle of the road, seconds after my car had gone straight over the top of it. I'm not sure if this indicates extreme stupidity or extreme intelligence though.

Odd experiment in self awareness

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago they tried the red dot on the forehead mirror test with Congressmen but got no reaction. As a control they tried taping a $100 bill to their foreheads and all quickly recognized the bill and reached for it. In an even more bizarre twist they seem to be able to find the bill even when blindfolded. They seemed to sniff the air so it was assumed they could smell the bill. Even stranger still when they taped a $1 bill to their foreheads it got no reaction even when they weren't blindfolded. The researchers concluded Congressmen were amazing creatures worthy of more study. As to them being self aware the tests were inconclusive.

Roadside magpies

[kobotronic]

Watching the roadkill feeding magpies cooly walk around just behind the white road lines, you can tell they have worked out a pretty solid theory for how cars move and that they understand how the cars are dangerous hazards but nevertheless predictable and avoidable. Other birds simply take flight in panic and some don't even recognize cars as a hazard - dumb turkeys and pheasants dumbly just obliviously waddle out in traffic.

In Tokyo crows - corvid relatives of magpies - have been observed figuring out how to exploit the traffic signal cycles. The crows drop nuts in the path of the cars, in the middle of the pedestrian crossings, and patiently sit overhead waiting for the light to change so they can go down and have a look and pick up the nuts crushed by the car tires. Maybe these crows developed a theory of cars as practical and dependable "thing crushers" - producing crispy roadkill and other delicious crush jobs.

Fascinating birds.

Re:Roadside magpies

[jambox]

Pheasants are one of the dumbest creatures imaginable. Ants have more nous. Are they a product of selective breeding like cows and sheep? If so, perhaps they've been bred for stupidity. Also politicians.

I was walking in the forest near home once with my little boy when we saw a pheasant meandering along. When it saw us it froze and stood there stock still, presumably hoping we wouldn't notice it.

When my son saw it, naturally (for a three year old) he charged straight towards it with his arms out, laughing. The pheasant looked pretty surprised and eventually bolted for the nearest bush. Hilariously, it just stuck it's head in while it's body and legs remained flat on the floor, completely exposed.

Possibly one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

I think an animal should know it's in big trouble when it's easy meat for a human toddler.

Re:Roadside magpies

[macshit]

When my son saw it, naturally (for a three year old) he charged straight towards it with his arms out, laughing. The pheasant looked pretty surprised and eventually bolted for the nearest bush. Hilariously, it just stuck it's head in while it's body and legs remained flat on the floor, completely exposed. Possibly one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

Perhaps the rest of the peasants were on the other side of the bush.... waiting....

Self Aware or Vanity Test?

[Nymz]

I wouldn't rule out other creatures being self aware based on a visual sensory test, as a sense of self may be more strongly defined by other senses or perceptions. More likely the mirror test could tell us how preoccupied a creature is with their looks, so what would you call a creature that constantly looks for ways to compare itself with others?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is fairest of all?

Birds are more intelligent then people think

[Anonymous Coward]

Birds actually have more brains than people realise - literally.

While they may not have a mammalian brain, they haven't been idle. Once they diverged from the rest of the raptor dinosaurs (or possibly before it, based on some evidence of mating/nesting habits), birds developed another brain 'layer' much like mammals did. This layer was not the same as the mammal one, but it was nonetheless more sophisticated than the reptilian brain stem we all inherit.

Certainly, birds have shown remarkable intelligence in various studies.

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_intelligence

"In recent years it was realized that certain birds have developed high intelligence entirely convergently from mammals such as humans."

Problems with the mirror mark test

[Anonymous Coward]

The mirror mark test is long known to be a very non-definitive method for testing for self awareness. For one, it is subject to the "Clever Hans" effect, so named after a horse who could allegedly perform simple addition. For two, it assumes that if the animal moves to view the mark better that it is aware that the mark is on its own body. By placing the mark on an obvious place on the body, movements for better viewing on another individual would be the same as movements for better viewing on your own body in a mirror. For three, it uses one type of control but not an important one. The control most often use is a dot on a nonobvious place on the body. For example, a black dot on black feathers. However the most important control would be to place a mark on another individual and see if the animal responds to that.

Re:my dog...

[nawcom]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

Please understand what self-recognition in a mirror is. It has been known for a long time that dogs recognize their own scent, but with their black-and-white eyesight they have never shown any signs of recognizing themselves in a mirror, at least not in any social sense.

Vampires

[jolyonr]

Doesn't this logic mean that vampires are not self-aware?

Re:Looping behaviour

[egomaniac]

It was a wasp, if I remember correctly. The wasp's "program" was to drag its paralyzed prey to its burrow, go inside the burrow and make sure the coast was clear, then return to the prey and drag it into the burrow.

But if the researchers moved the prey while the wasp was checking its burrow, it would reposition the prey and then check its burrow again. And it would repeat this as long as they kept moving it.