RE: Tool-Using Avian Dinosaurs... :-)

[evelyn sobielski <koreke77@yahoo.de>]

--- Guy Leahy <xrciseguy@sbcglobal.net> schrieb:

> Very cool videos...
> 
>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7027923.stm
> 
> Gives new meaning to the term "Bird-Brain"... ;-)

What we have here is basically chimp-level
intelligence from a brain of some 10 grams. Probably
the world record for weight-brainpower ratio.

Other corvids have been recently observed to use
makeshift weaponry against each other (picking up a
stick and poking a competitor at feeding with it).

See also http://avianbrain.org/ especially
http://avianbrain.org/new_terminology.html which would
be interesting to compare to "Cerebravis" and other
theropod brain endocasts. The take-home point is that
they do all this without the slightest vestige of a
neocortex, which apparently never even evolved in
birds in the first place. Higher cognitive functions
in birds and mammals are, in effect, 100% convergent.

What I find amazing is how humans and these crows
manage to coexist on NC. This report is the first
indication I have that might resolve this trivially:
the crows seem to avoid human habitation. The point
being that traditional burials on NC involve placing
the corpse, wrapped in bandages, on an elevated
platform. This is not the way one would want to do it
if there were tool-using corvids around. Too messy.
But the crows preferring undisturbed forest would
neatly resolve the issue.


Eike

PS: "Cerebravis" - how's that treated? Valid
ichnotaxon or non-ichnotaxon nomen dubium?


      __________________________________  
Yahoo! Clever: Sie haben Fragen? Yahoo! Nutzer antworten Ihnen. 
www.yahoo.de/clever