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Full-Text Articles in Behavior and Ethology
Predicting Cognitive Capacity From Natural History: Examples From Four Species Of Corvids, Russell P. Balda, Alan Kamil, Peter A. Bednekoff
Predicting Cognitive Capacity From Natural History: Examples From Four Species Of Corvids, Russell P. Balda, Alan Kamil, Peter A. Bednekoff
Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences
Birds have been studied for centuries because they are numerous, conspicuous, and aesthetically pleasing to humans. Despite their overall regard for birds, historically, many ornithologists have considered birds as instinct-driven organisms of little intellectual capacity. For example, the ornithological textbook of choice from the 1960s states the following view of avian intelligence:
Flight has proven to be an enormously successful evolutionary venture, but one that has cost birds dearly in mental development. In effect, problems merely by flying away from them. … As a consequence, much [avian] behavior is, by mammalian standards, fragmentary, stereotyped, and at times amazingly stupid. (Welty, …