Brains and senses

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Brains and senses
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Intelligence

• Are birds intelligent animals?

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The Krushinsky problem (Stettner and Matyniak,
1968)

• Comparative experiment of dogs, cats, rabbits,
  chickens, pigeons, crows.

doors
Food no food
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Experiments with Game Theory cooperative
behaviorOne example Clements and Stevens 1995
C cooperate D defect
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Mutualism
Synergism
Prisoners Dilemma
Cruel Bind
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Clements and Stevens 1995 Blue Jays
Opaque or transparent partition
C or D keys
6 Jays 3 pairs
Food Reward Cup
TEST P. Dilemma ? Mutualism ? P. D.
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Other tests of intelligence

• Simpler food-reward tests
• Stimulus-food vs stimulus-no food
• Birds no problem
• Cats, Squirrel Monkeys problems
• Counting Crows (actually ravens and parakeets)
• Identify food boxes with number of objects in
  front of them.
• Imitation experiments
• Blue Jays can learn tasteful vs distasteful
  butterflies from naive neighbors
• Milk bottle feeding
• Tool Use in Birds

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Woodpecker Finch
Tool Use in Birds
Green Heron
Egyptian Vultures
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New Caledonian Crows

• Main site users.ox.ac.uk/kgroup/
  tools/tools_main.html
• http//users.ox.ac.uk/kgroup/manufacture_web.mov
• http//users.ox.ac.uk/kgroup/trial7_web.mov

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Very brief overview of the avian nervous system

• Functions
• obtain (via sensory receptors) information about
  the internal external environment
• analyze , as needed, respond to that information
  
• store information as memory learning
• coordinate outgoing motor impulses to skeletal
  muscles the viscera (smooth muscle, cardiac
  muscle, glands)
• Parts
• CNS brain and spinal cord
• PNS
• Includes
• Cranial and spinal nerves
• autonomic nerves and ganglia
• Tissues associate w/ sense organs

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CNS

• CNS Brain Spinal Cord

• Functions?
• Cerebrum
• Cerebellum
• Medulla
• Spinal cord
• Optic lobe

Olfactory bulb
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Where does bird get its brain features?
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From Jarvis, 2005
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• Pallium
• linkage between sensory inputs and motor outputs
• an interface between sensory and perceptual
  processing and mechanisms which modulate behavior
• 75-80 of forebrain in birds and mammals
• Subpallium
• Important in coordinating muscular activity

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Spinal cord
Bird croc mammal

• Enlargements
• associated with
• function.

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Secondary function???

• Symbols signify cells that are accumulating sex
  hormones (testosterone) in Golden-collared
  manakins.
• Testosterone may regulate movements associated
  with breeding behavior

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Senses

• Tactile
• Corpuscles (nerve receptors)
• Herbst pressure sensitive
• Bills waterfowl
• Tongues (?)
• Dermis of skin, beak and legs
• Grandry bill of waterfowl
• Merkel nerve endings in featherless skin of
  bill and legs (dermis, not epidermis)

Duck bill
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Merkel
Mammalian Merkel schematic and prepuce
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Red Knot feeding

• Piersma et al. 1998
• Hid stones in wet and dry sand
• Detectable in wet but not dry
• Cant distinguish between shell and stone

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Smell

• Receptors in surface epithelium of olfactory
  cavities

White-chinned petrel
puffin
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Taste

• Back of the tongue (if any), floor of pharynx,
  inside of mouth cavity
• Comparison
• Chicken 24
• E. Starling 200
• Mallard 375
• lizards 550
• humans 9,000
• catfish 100,000
• Some are better
• Dunlins can taste where worms were and werent in
  sand
• Hummingbirds can distinguish b/w different sugar
  soluns.
• Generally high tolerance to off-pH substances.