We Finally Know Why Birds Are So Freakishly Smart [View all]

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Birds are capable of extraordinary behavioral feats, from solving complex puzzles to tool making. There may be good reason for that. A new study shows that, pound for pound, birds pack more neurons into their small brains than mammals, including primates.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this study is the first to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of more than a dozen bird species, from tiny zebra finches to the six-foot-tall emu. By doing so, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel and her team at Vanderbilt University discovered that avian brains contain more neurons per square inch than mammalian brains.

This means that birds pack more brain power per pound than mammals, offering an explanation for their remarkable cognitive talents. What’s more, the study shows that evolution has found more than one way to build a complex brain.

Scientists have long wondered how birds—with their teeny-tiny brains—are capable of exhibiting many complex behaviors, some of which were thought to the be exclusive domain of larger primates. Birds can manufacture tools, cache food, plan for the future, pass the mirror test, use insight to solve problems, and understand cause-and-effect. They’ve also been observed to hide food in front of other birds, and then relocate that food when the other birds aren’t looking. This suggests that birds have a “theory of mind,” which means they’re capable of inferring what other birds are thinking. Very few animals can do that.

More: http://gizmodo.com/we-finally-know-why-birds-are-so-freakishly-smart-1781889157

The study is also freely available: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1517131113.full.pdf