Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Maybe You Should Pay Your Research Subjects...

 ...at least if they're Australian magpies.

Despite their name, Australian magpies are not corvids, although they are fairly close on the evolutionary tree. This is obvious from the fact that they pipe instead of cawing.

But it seems that they fall into the same degree of intelligence, as scientists found out when they attempted to fit a bunch of them with tracking harnesses.

Well, they got the harnesses on the birds.

The five birds, unamused, promptly got together and removed the harnesses. This demonstrated, by the way, altruism (which is also demonstrated by rats, so not that unique) as well as intelligence, cooperation, and problem solving.

I have a feeling they may need to pay the next bunch. Maybe with tacos?

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