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https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/birds/whats-it-like-being-a-raven-or-a-crow/>
"Many of us as children may have wondered what’s going on inside the mind of an
animal – what are they thinking and feeling? Most animal researchers study
science because of their fascination with animals, but for a long time
scientific norms made it impossible to even raise the question of animal
consciousness without losing scientific credibility.
Fortunately, those days have ended, thanks in large part to pioneering work by
scientists such as Donald Griffin, who argued from the 1980s to his death in
2003 that animal minds should be a topic for scientific study.
We are philosophers who study consciousness, and in our recent research we
worked with other scientists to explore what the world might be like from the
point of view of corvids, the family of birds that includes ravens, crows, jays
and magpies.
“Birdbrain” used to be a common insult but corvids have such surprising
intelligence that they are sometimes described by scientists and journalists as
“feathered apes”. But we wanted to go beyond intelligence. To do this we
examined five dimensions of their experience by combing through studies on
their behaviour, cognition, brains, emotions and consciousness.
Corvids’ eyes have incredibly sharp resolution that allows them to navigate
while flying at high speeds and to find potential sources of food. Their
hearing is excellent, perhaps unsurprising for songbirds, allowing them to even
distinguish reliable from unreliable group members by assessing and remembering
their alert calls.
They also have a good sense of smell, which they use to help them find nuts and
other food they have hidden. Unfortunately, we do not know how their smell
compares to a lot of other animals, because there are not enough studies on
corvids’ sense of smell yet."
Via Adam Blewett and Kenny Chaffin.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics