kalamazu

rartastic:

alinasmith:

ronbailey:

In Kenya, Honeyguide birds locate beehives and communicate their location to humans, who then do the hard labor of breaking into the hive and extracting the honey. Honey which they then share with the birds.

These are wild birds, not domesticated pets trained to work for human masters. These are two independent species that have figured out how to communicate with each other.

Mind. Blown.

Whoa. The kids should see this.

These birds are considered by some to be proof that animals can think (as opposed to only relying on learning or instinctual behavior).

In some experiments the human purposely ignores the honeyguide for a while, and the honeyguide then tries to lead the human to a different hive, proving that it has a mental map of the area and the location of the hives, and proving that it can evaluate and adapt to the situation. (Gould & Gould, Scientific American, I don’t have a date, sorry)

My roommate read a book and now claims that dogs don’t think. They react and perform, but they just regurgitate what humans have taught them.

If the tiny brains of birds can do this, how can people say that dogs don’t think?