News Release:
New evidence that other animals rival clever apes
| Date 23/2/04 No 021/04 Can animals think? Scientists are now asking this question of animals such as fish and chickens, as well as of our nearest relatives the apes and monkeys. A new book, edited by world-renowned scientists Lesley Rogers and Gisela Kaplan from the University of New England, is at the cutting edge of this research. It explores the scientific evidence for and against the common assumption that our fellow primates (the apes and monkeys) are more intelligent than other animals. Comparative Vertebrate Cognition: Are Primates Superior to Non-primates (Kluwer Academic, New York) presents evidence that fish, birds, dogs, elephants and other animals can solve problems similar to those that have been used to demonstrate the "special" abilities of primates. This latest addition to a distinguished series published by Kluwer/Plenum under the general title "Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects" comprises 10 chapters by internationally acknowledged leaders in the field. It also has an extensive Introduction and Epilogue by Professors Rogers and Kaplan, who are the authors of many books on animal behaviour. Among the discoveries the new book documents are complex social
learning in fish, and the formation of abstract concepts such as
"centre" and "periphery" in chickens. Professor
Rogers points out that these cognitive abilities in fish and chickens
have gone unrecognised until now because researchers "have
simply not asked the same experimental questions" of these
animals as they have of primates. |
In her own chapter, Professor Rogers tackles the question of relative brain size and points out that some birds, with their smaller but (in some respects) more adaptable brains, can learn behaviour patterns as complex as any observed in apes. One example she discusses is tool-use, once thought to be unique to humans, and then (after its discovery in apes) to some primates. Studies over the past decade have shown that crows in New Caledonia not only use tools to probe for insects, but also manufacture the tools (by shaping leaves) and store them for future use. "This is a highly-developed ability that definitely rivals tool-use in chimpanzees," she says. Professor Kaplan's chapter, on meaningful communication, draws parallels between vocal signalling in primates and birds, and includes findings from her own research on vocal communication in Australian magpies. She also demonstrates that the communication used by animals when hunting in packs is no more complex in chimpanzees than in African wild dogs and wolves. "Only in chimpanzees, however, has it been interpreted as a mark of higher intelligence," she says. The debates raised and explored in this book have vast implications for theory, animal welfare, animal rights, and our understanding of who we are and where our own cognitive abilities come from. The book demonstrates that some cognitive traits evolved much earlier than had previously been thought. Media contact: Professor Leseley Rogers on (02) 6773 3969, Professor
Gisela Kaplan on (02) 6775 3113, or Jim Scanlan (UNE Public Relations)
on (02) 6773 3049. |
