How Wise Are Owls?

The term “bird brained” is a bit outdated. At this point, we know magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror, crows can outperform 5-year-old children on certain reasoning tests, and emus-- well, actually, emus are pretty dumb... But what about owls?

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Read More About Bird Intelligence in our References:

Errington, P. L. (1932). Studies on the Behavior of the Great Horned Owl. The Wilson Bulletin. https://doi.org/https://sora.unm.edu/...

Fajardo, I., Babiloni, G., & Miranda, Y. (2000). Rehabilitated and wild barn owls (Tyto alba). Biological Conservation, 94(3), 287–295. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0006-3207(00...

Gutiérrez-Ibáñez, C., Iwaniuk, A. N., & Wylie, D. R. (2018). Parrots have evolved a primate-like telencephalic-midbrain-cerebellar circuit. Scientific Reports, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-28...

Ksepka, D. T., Balanoff, A. M., Smith, et al. (2020). Tempo and Pattern of Avian Brain Size Evolution. Current Biology, 30(11). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.03...

Levey, D. J., Duncan, R. S., & Levins, C. F. (2004). Use of dung as a tool by burrowing owls. Nature, 431(7004), 39–39. https://doi.org/10.1038/431039a

Obozova, T. A., & Zorina, Z. A. (2013). Do Great Grey Owls Comprehend Means–end Relationships? International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 26(3). https://doi.org/10.46867/ijcp.2013.26...

Olkowicz, S., Kocourek, M., Lučan, R. K., Porteš, M., Fitch, W. T., Herculano-Houzel, S., & Němec, P. (2016). Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(26), 7255–7260. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517131113

Pena, J. L., & DeBello, W. M. (2010). Auditory Processing, Plasticity, and Learning in the Barn Owl. ILAR Journal, 51(4), 338–352. https://doi.org/10.1093/ilar.51.4.338

Sultan, F. (2005). Why some bird brains are larger than others. Current Biology, 15(17). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2005.08...

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Music & Media:

Dreams Become Real by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

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