What Do Animals Think?

[rynner2]

This is impressive....

This is so easy, a human could do it! The amazing elephant that paints from life
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 7:56 AM on 09th January 2009

Oh dear, Lankam the elephant doesn't seem to have got the hang of being an artist.
For a start, his paintings actually resemble their subjects.
Even more unforgivably, his most expensive work sold for just £20,000 - barely enough to keep Damien Hirst in formaldehyde.

Lankam, an 11-year-old male Asian elephant, is one of a group of artistically inclined animals at the Maesa Camp in Chiang Mai, north Thailand, which have created hundreds of paintings.

This simple representation of a vase of flowers will sell for 2,000 baht (around £38).
The money helps to fund the sanctuary where the elephants - many of which used to be owned by logging companies - now live.
Each year thousands of tourists travel to the region to witness the amazing talents of the elephants.

As well as painting, they also play football and basketball.
Swedish photographer Bronek Kaminski, who stumbled across the park, said: 'I was amazed by the elephants.
'They hold the brush in their trunk and paint as though it is second nature. Each stroke is so considered it is quite unbelievable.'

In 2004, Lankam joined seven fellow elephants to create a record-breaking oil painting.
Measuring 8ft wide and 39ft long, the piece was sold for 1.5million baht (£20,000) to a Thai businesswoman living in California.

Pics on link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1110101/This-easy-human-The-amazing-elephant-paints-life.html

 

[James_H]

 

[rynner2]

Communicating with deaf dogs
Posted By: Peter Wedderburn at Jan 23, 2009 at 12:03:41 [General]

A small white puppy has made the news today because she has learned a task that humans would certainly not be able to accomplish at her age. The pure-white Jack Russell terrier (called Snowy, of course), can understand sign language at the age of only four months.

Obviously the level of communication is fairly basic: she can sit, stay and come in response to hand gestures, but she's only been learning for three weeks. Over the coming months, she'll be expected to understand a dozen more commands, which is more than most dogs with full hearing can appreciate.

Deafness in pets is surprisingly common, and interestingly, there's a very strong link between coat colour and the ability to hear. There are tiny "hearing" cells in the inner ear that are derived from the same embryonic cells that produce pigment in the body. An all-white animal has a deficiency of pigment-producing cells, and often that means that the specialised hearing cells are also absent. The general rule is that the more "white" an animal is, the more likely it is to be deaf. This applies equally to cats and to dogs.

A pure white cat with two blue eyes is almost always completely deaf. If the cat has a smudge of dark fur on it's forehead, it will often have hearing, and if it has green eyes rather than blue eyes, it's also more likely to be able to hear. In the dog world, a breed like the Dalmatian is more likely to be deaf if it has fewer spots: the purer white the dog, the higher the chance of deafness.

It's surprisingly difficult to assess hearing in animals. You can try whistling, jangling keys or making high pitched noises, but you have to be careful that the animal doesn't see movement out of the corner of its eye. If there is no response, is the animal ignoring you, or is it genuinely deaf? The definitive answer can only be established using the so-called brainstem auditory evoked response (BAER) test. This involves measuring the electrical activity of the brain in response to noise, but it can only be done in a few specialised centres.

Deaf animals can cope surprisingly well with normal life: they adapt rapidly, using their other senses, and it's common for owners to learn basic sign language, as in Snowy's case. The main problem is that they are vulnerable to certain specific risks, such as approaching cars, or predators. Deaf animals cannot be allowed to go outside unsupervised: dogs need to be kept on leads, and it's dangerous for cats to go out at all. Hand signals are the clearest way to communicate with deaf pets but they also learn to understand facial expressions and body language. There are many resources on the internet to help new owners of deaf animals. Books have even been written specifically about training deaf dogs.

If a dog has partial hearing, in theory a hearing aid could help, and this has been tried in the USA. Unsurprisingly, most deaf dogs don't like having an object stuffed into their ear. A more effective but completely unrealistic approach might be a cochlear implant: at a cost of over £20000, these are not very popular.

It makes much more sense to try to prevent deaf animals from being born in the first place. Many pedigree breeds are reported to have instances of congenital deafness and there are now schemes in place to screen animals from "at risk" breeds before using them for breeding.

One-off deaf pups like Snowy will continue to be born, and as long as they find the right homes, they'll manage just fine. Now that this has hit the news, will we start to see evening classes in "sign language for dogs?"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/peter_wedd ... _deaf_dogs

 

[rynner2]

Elephant provides breakdown assistance to zoo keeper
An elephant put its size to good use when it helped a zoo keeper start his car by giving it a shove.
Published: 5:00PM BST 26 Apr 2010

Lawrence Bates was all set to call for assistance when his jeep at West Midland Safari Park broke down, until Five the elephant decided to give him a helping hand.

The 18-year-old African Elephant got behind and pushed the car out of trouble and out of the enclosure.

She even cleaned the car in the process.

Five reached into a bucket of water with her trunk, sprayed the vehicle with water to remove any dust, then gathered up a sponge with her trunk and cleaned the windows and paintwork with the style of a true professional.

Director of Wildlife, Bob Lawrence, said: "The jeep broke down one morning and the lads jumped out to have a look at it, popped the bonnet and had a look at the oil.

"We still couldn't get it to start so gave it a push start, eventually got it going - at this time though its covered with dirty hand marks so Five gave it a quick wash and a hose down.

"But the jeep broke down again and to our astonishment Five came over and decided to give us a hand.

"She lifted the bonnet up, got the dipstick, and gave it to Lawrence. When we still couldn't get it to start, she went round the back and gave us a push. :shock:

"I've never seen anything like this in my life - it was absolutely incredible.

"Five and her Keeper are a real team.

"It is said that an Elephant never forgets, thankfully we don't experience many vehicle breakdowns, but next time Five will know exactly what to do".

West Midland Safari Park have three African Elephants that have often engaged in a variety of unusual pursuits, such as creating works of art and playing football.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... eeper.html

 

[rynner2]

Chimps' emotional response to death caught on film
A video of the reaction of chimps to the death of an elderly group mate challenges procedures for dealing with terminally ill animals in captivity
Ian Sample guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 April 2010 18.36 BST

In the final hour, they huddled around, studied her face and shook her gently as if to revive her. And when the others had drifted away, one stayed behind to hold her hand.

As death scenes go, it has all the poignancy of human loss, but this was no everyday tragedy. The last breath was drawn before scientists' cameras and represents one of the most extraordinary displays of chimpanzee behaviour ever recorded.

Video footage of the death of Pansy, who at fifty-something was the oldest chimpanzee in the UK, was released by scientists today. The film captures for the first time the complex reactions of our nearest evolutionary cousins to the death of a group member.

Studying the apes' behaviour could tell us as much about ourselves as the attachments and responses to death that chimpanzees exhibit within their groups and families, scientists believe. It could also challenge procedures for dealing with terminally ill animals in captivity.

Three adult chimpanzees gather around Pansy as she dies peacefully. Video: Anderson et al/Current Biology "Some of these behaviours have never been seen before in chimpanzees. It leads us to ask questions about the evolutionary origins of our own response to death and dying in a member of our own group or family," said Jim Anderson, an expert in the social behaviour of non-human primates at Stirling University in Scotland, who recorded the footage. "Many of our greatest philosophical questions concern death and dying and how we perceive it and deal with it."

Pansy, a female who died of old age at Blair Drummond Safari Park at the end of 2008, was one of four chimpanzees being filmed by Anderson's group. When she became ill, vets paid regular visits to give treatment, while her companions – her daughter, a male and another female – looked on from a distance.

When Pansy lay down in a nest that one of the other apes had made, the rest gathered around her and began grooming and caressing her. Shortly before she died, all three crouched down and inspected her face very closely. They then began to shake her gently. "It is difficult to avoid thinking that they were checking for signs of life," said Anderson.

"After a time, it seemed that the chimpanzees arrived at a collective decision that she had gone. Two left immediately, but one, the other adult female, stayed and held her hand," said Anderson. "That evening, her daughter came back and stayed with her mother all night long. She was trying to sleep, but was clearly very disturbed. All three of them were."

etc...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/ ... death-film

 

[rynner2]

Don't even think about it! The fearless squirrel who fights off crows determined to eat his dead friend
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:25 AM on 27th April 2010

Loyalty among the larger creatures of the animal kingdom is well documented.
But faithfulness and friendship from a squirrel?
A remarkable video has appeared showing just that, with one scaring off several crows as he protects the dead body of his little mate.
His stand against overwhelming odds and the formidable devotion shown by such a small animal has been acknowledged by over half-a-million hits on the video-sharing website YouTube.

The clip begins with him tentatively edging towards a solitary crow which is preparing to feast on the carcass which lies on a road.

Unsettled by the squirrel's approach the crow backs off and, emboldened, the rodent edges forward until he is standing over his friend's body.
When the crow lurches forward to take a peck, the squirrel jumps and frightens it off.
The squirrel continually waves his tail in warning but then another crow steps up fancying its chances. The plucky rodent then stands on its hind legs, poised for a stand-off.
With its adversaries retreating, the brave animal takes the opportunity to wash its paws in preparation for the next bout.

As the film progresses another crow appears and then another. The collective term for a crow is a 'murder' and it seems that is what they have in mind for the feisty character as he frustrates their every move.

Squirrels have a reputation for displaying an admirable fighting streak.
The Daily Mail revealed last year how a dog seemed to have got more than it bargained for after pouncing on a baby squirrel it found on the ground.
Moments before the hapless baby would have been torn apart, its mother appeared to leap off a nearby tree, attacking the surprised dog.
Using its sharp teeth and claws, the squirrel tore into its canine opponent and distracted it so the baby could escape to freedom.
Which just may go to show - never mess with a squirrel.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0mIGwbtyz

 

[rynner2]

Monkeys use trees to catapault themselves out of Japanese laboratory
Monkeys at a research institute in Japan have used the branches of trees to catapault themselves over an electric fence in order to escape.
By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Published: 6:00AM BST 07 Jul 2010

A group of 15 monkeys at Kyoto University's primate research institute in Aichi Prefecture, which are the focus of a string of high-profile scientific studies, escaped from their forest home which is encased by a 17ft high electric fence.

The monkeys made their bid for freedom by using tree branches to fling themselves one by one over the high voltage electric fence located nearly three metres away. :shock:

However, despite the intelligence shown in their great escape, the primates appeared unsure as to what to do with their newfound freedom: the monkeys remained by the gates of the research centre and were lured back into captivity by scientists armed with peanuts. 8)

"It was an incredible escape and the first time something like this has ever happened," Hirohisa Hirai, the deputy head of the Primate Research Institute told the Daily Telegraph.

"We think that maybe there was some kind of dispute among the monkeys in the forest and so this group decided to leave.

"Fortunately, they stayed by the fence after escaping as they probably wanted to stay near to the other monkeys so we managed to recapture them all.

"But we were extremely surprised by the intelligence and the power they used in order to escape."

Scientists have since cut the trees in order to prevent a repeat escape, Mr Hirai added.

The Kyoto institution is one of the world's leading primate research centres, with a series of internationally recognised studies exploring the social interaction, behaviour, biology and evolution of primates.

Around 80 Japanese monkeys currently live in the enclosed forest space within the confines of the institute from which the group of primates managed to escape.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... atory.html

 

[Mythopoeika]

Thought I'd share this little story with you.

My Dad told me about a little dog he had when he was a kid. I can't remember, but I think the dog's name was Rusty.
Every Saturday, this little dog would get up early and run down the hill into town on his own.
He'd then sit outside the butcher's very patiently until the butcher had given him a little parcel of meat. The butcher had got to know whose dog he was, so it was all paid for.
He'd then run back home and sit proudly on the kitchen doorstep with the parcel in his mouth, where he'd wait until my Nanna would come by and cook the meat.
Then he'd sit and watch while the meat was cooked up for him.
Amazingly, Rusty would only eat the meat if it was cooked, and he wouldn't eat it raw.

These days, this wouldn't happen, because somebody would round up an apparently stray dog.

 

[Zilch5]

Thought I'd share this little story with you.

My Dad told me about a little dog he had when he was a kid. I can't remember, but I think the dog's name was Rusty.
Every Saturday, this little dog would get up early and run down the hill into town on his own.

We had a similar thing until about 10 years ago in our suburb. The dog (not ours) would march up every day around lunch time to the local butcher who'd always had a spare bone for him. Dog would take the bone, parade it around a bit and walk himself back home.

Likewise - wouldn't happen today, sadly. Butcher is gone, dog is gone and he'd be more likely run over by a car.

 

[rynner2]

Baboons learn to listen for cars central locking tweet before breaking in
Baboons in Cape Town have learned to listen out for the tweet of a car's remote central locking before deciding whether to break in to search for food, according to the local authorities.
Aislinn Laing in Johannesburg
Published: 8:57AM BST 23 Jul 2010

The highly intelligent animals lie in wait as tourists get out of their car to gaze at the view from Cape Peninsula – the thin finger of land in the south westernmost corner of South Africa that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Then, if they haven't heard the telltale "tweet" of the locking system, they sneak over and open the car door to plunder its contents. 8)

So many picnics have now been lost to the simian raiders that the local authorities are pushing the government to commission an official baboon warning road sign as they have done for hippos, elephants, warthogs and kudus.

Theuns Vivian, Cape Town's Destination Development Manager, said humans and baboons would get along fine provided they were equally aware of each other.

"People stop their vehicles, and the vehicles get damaged," he said.

"Or they get out of their vehicles, and these baboons are highly intelligent animals. They're waiting for the sound of the car alarm.

"If they don't hear the 'tweet' they make for the door.

"So the tourists get out of the vehicle, they stand amazed at the vista and the view, and the baboons go for the door, and say: 'well, that door's not locked'.

"They are so intelligent: they wait for the noise of the alarm system. So we need to educate our tourists."

He is also planning to erect "do and don't" signs around the Mother City warning visitors about the dangers of getting too close to the creatures.

"These are dangerous animals, and you still have people trying to pose for a photograph next to a baboon with fangs the size of a cheetah's," he said.

"We value our baboons, and we value our tourists. We'd like to have a nice symbiosis."

Environmentalists say the territory available to baboons on the peninsula has shrunk with the expansion of city, meaning the primates are regularly spotted in built-up areas.

Earlier this month, a 14-year-old baboon who had been named William by residents was executed by lethal injection after he was caught repeatedly housebreaking and terrorising humans. :shock:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ng-in.html

 

[rynner2]

The Private Life of... - 3. Pigs

Jimmy Doherty embarks on a quest to reveal the hidden lives of farmyard animals. Jimmy visits a farm in Dartmoor to find out about pigs. How sensitive is a pig's nose? Why can they find truffles underground? How do piglets find the right teat to feed from? Pigs are very intelligent, but can they recognise themselves in a mirror?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... f..._Pigs/

Highly entertaining show. Our Jim whistles up some more (female) experts, including a zoologist who can speak Pig. Includes some overt sexual experiences (of pigs, not Jim).

 

[rynner2]

Dogs 'mimic movements of owners'
By Victoria Gill, Science reporter, BBC News

Dogs "automatically imitate" the body movements of their owners, according to a study.

This automatic imitation is a crucial part of social learning in humans.

But Austrian researchers report that the phenomenon - where the sight of another's body movement causes the observer to move in the same way - is evident in many other animals.

They say that it reveals clues about how this type of learning evolved.

The study, which was led by Dr Friederike Range from the University of Vienna in Austria, also suggests that the way in which people interact with and play with their dogs as they are growing up shapes their ability to imitate.

"It's not a spontaneous thing," said Dr Range. "The dogs needed a lot of training to learn it."

She and her colleagues investigated this imitation with a series of trials using a simple door-opening test.

The team built a box with a sliding door on the front that could be opened with a knob.

The owners demonstrated how to open the door by using either their hand or their mouth.

"When the owners used the hand, the dog had to open the door with its paw to get a reward," Dr Range said.

When the owner opened the door with their mouth, the dog had to use the same technique.

Dr Range explained to BBC News: "A second group of dogs had to learn the alternative method - if the owner used their hand, they had to use their mouth, and when the owner used their mouth, they had to use the paw."

The dogs that had to imitate the same action as their owner learned their task far more quickly.

This showed that the dogs had a predisposition to imitate their owners' hand/paw and mouth/muzzle movements.

She noted that, because dogs have a very different body shapes to people, they also had to interpret what they saw.

"This type of learning has obvious evolutionary advantages for animals," Dr Range said. "They can learn about certain aspects of life without having to learn by trial and error, which always comes with some risk."

The new evidence supports a theory of learning which suggests that a system of "mirror neurons" and the capacity to imitate are forged as an animal learns and develops, rather than this system being inborn.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10777586

 

[rynner2]

Pessimistic dogs 'more anxious' when left alone

Dogs that bark or destroy objects when left alone may be "pessimistic", a new study has shown.

A team at Bristol University used human psychology research to compare negative-natured dogs with those that display a "glass half full" attitude.

Professor Mike Mendl, who led the research, drew comparisons between the emotional states of dogs and people.

The study was funded by the RSPCA which sees a large number of dogs given up due to behavioural problems.

"We know that people's emotional states affect their judgements and that happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively," said Professor Mendl, head of the Animal Welfare and Behaviour research group at Bristol University's School of Clinical Veterinary Science.

"What our study has shown is that this applies similarly to dogs - that a 'glass half-full' dog is less likely to be anxious when left alone than one with a more 'pessimistic' nature."

In the study, dogs at two UK animal re-homing centres were trained so that when a bowl was put at a "positive" location it would contain food, but when at the "negative" location it would be empty.

The bowl was then placed at ambiguous locations between the positive and negative positions.

Professor Mendl explained: "Dogs that ran fast to these ambiguous locations, as if expecting the positive food reward, were classed as making relatively 'optimistic' decisions.

"Interestingly, these dogs tended to be the ones who also showed least anxiety-like behaviour when left alone for a short time.

"Around half of dogs in the UK may at some point perform separation-related behaviours - toileting, barking and destroying objects around the home - when they're apart from their owners.

"Our study suggests that dogs showing these types of behaviour also appear to make more pessimistic judgements generally."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11513985

 

[rynner2]

Meet Chaser: The incredible border collie who has learned the names for 1022 toys
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 7:52 AM on 23rd December 2010
#
Dog owners like to think that their pets understand what they’re being told.
Indeed, some owners will talk to their dogs at great length while the animal gazes back at them with what is probably a mixture of affection and bewilderment.

However, there is one dog who appears to understand a great deal of what is being said.
Border collie Chaser has, according to psychologists Alliston Reid and John Pilley, managed to learn more than 1,000 words.
Their findings could mean that all those conversations with our pets aren’t entirely wasted.

Professor Reid and Dr Pilley worked intensively with six-year-old Chaser for three years to see how large a vocabulary she could command.
They made up names for 1,022 toys, including frisbees, balls and stuffed animals, and found she was able to learn and remember them all.

Chaser, owned by Dr Pilley, was also able to sort them according to function and shape, something children learn at around three.

Professor Reid said: ‘We wanted to see if there was a limit to the number of words a dog could understand, and if they could understand the name of an object rather than just respond to a command related to an object, such as fetch.
‘We worked with Chaser for four to five hours each day testing her on the words over and over again and were able to establish that she could remember and distinguish between them all. We’re not saying this means dogs can learn language in the same way children do, but it does show they are capable of learning many more words than might have been thought.’

The research at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, involved introducing Chaser to the toys one by one and then repeating the name to reinforce the association. She was also regularly tested on her entire vocabulary.

Groups of 20 toys were chosen at random and Chaser had to retrieve them by name.
She completed 838 of these tests over the three years and never got less than 18 out of 20 right, according to the findings published in the New Scientist magazine.

Chaser was also taught to combine three different commands with the toys – ‘paw’ (move it with your paw), ‘nose’ (push it with your nose’), and ‘bring’.
Beverley Cuddy, editor of Dogs Today magazine, said: ‘It’s very inspiring. Many owners think their dogs are capable of understanding a lot more than they might feel comfortable with letting on about and now science seems to be saying they’re not mad to think so.’

In 2004 it was claimed border ­collie Rico, aged nine from Leipzig in Germany, knew 200 words.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z18vlXHp7C

 

[rynner2]

The sharpest mind in the farmyard
by Michael Marshall

Species: Ovis aries
Habitat: farms all around the world – a world that they secretly run

When we look for examples of intelligent animals, certain species always leap to mind. Ourselves of course, and our close relatives the chimpanzees and other primates. Perhaps the cunning corvids – crows and scrub jays – with their prodigious memories and talent for deception. Dolphins and whales are pretty bright. Many would even agree that there is a sort of intelligence governing the behaviour of social insects like ants.

But sheep? Sheep are just thick.

Except that they aren't. Over the past few decades, evidence has quietly built up that sheep are anything but stupid. It now turns out that the humble domestic sheep can pass a psychological test that monkeys struggle with, and which is so sensitive it is used to look for neurological decline in human patients.

Woolly thinkers
Laura Avanzo and Jennifer Morton of the University of Cambridge were interested in a new kind of genetically modified sheep. These animals carry a defective gene that in humans causes Huntington's disease, an inherited disorder that leads to nerve damage and dementia. The hope is that the Huntington's sheep could be a testing ground for possible treatments.

For that to work, they reasoned, researchers will have to be able to track changes in the cognitive abilities of the Huntington's sheep. So they decided to find out whether normal sheep could pass some of the challenging tests given to people with Huntington's. If the sheep passed, that would mean that the Huntington's sheep could be seen losing the ability as their disease progressed – and maybe regaining it if any treatments worked.

So Avanzo and Morton put seven female sheep through a series of increasingly tricky challenges. In one test the sheep walked into a pen that contained two buckets, one blue and the other yellow, with some food in the blue one. Over the course of a few trials they learned what was going on and always went to the blue bucket.

When the researchers put the food in the yellow bucket instead, the sheep changed their behaviour accordingly. They also mastered a subtler game in which the food was still in one of the buckets but the clue to its location was the colour of a cone placed nearby, not the colour of the bucket itself.

Extra dimensions
Next Avanzo and Morton stepped up the intellectual pressure, trying the sheep on intra-dimensional and extra-dimensional set-shifting. These tested the animals' ability to shift their attention, something that requires a high level of mental control.

In intra-dimensional set-shifting, the sheep still had to choose a bucket based on colour, but the set of colours was different: instead of blue and yellow, the choice was purple and green. Humans find this pretty easy. Extra-dimensional shifting is harder, as the sheep had to ignore the colour of the objects and instead focus on their shapes.

In a touching piece of scientific understatement, Avanzo and Morton note that their decision to do these tests "was driven more by curiosity than expectation". Humans and other primates can do set-shifting, but other large animals struggle with it – although researchers have persuaded mice and rats to do it. The task relies on the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that is much bigger in humans than other animals.

Impressively, the sheep passed the tests, learning to attend either to different pairs of colours or to the objects' shapes as necessary. As well as being good news for the study of Huntington's disease, it's one more step towards rehabilitating sheep's reputation.

Top of the flock
It really is about time we stopped making fun of sheep. They can not only recognise each other's faces, especially sheep they are socially close to – they can remember significant others for at least two years. They can also discriminate breeds, preferring to look at their own.

What's more, there is evidence that they can group plants by family and memorise the correct route through a maze. They have sophisticated social lives too: rams become long-term buddies and stick up for each other in fights.

There are even claims that sheep in the UK have learned to cross cattle grids by rolling across them, but further research may be needed on that point. :shock:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... myard.html

 

[coaly]

I don't want to sound all biased here, but, border collies are very different from other breeds of dogs, in that they are inately very intelligent. Collies I have known, have an uncanny speech recognition. Seriously, you could aqsk one to give a paw to someone, by saying their names. "Where's Sue? Find Sue!" And the collie would go over to Sue, look at you, and point! etc.
And with the toys... more than one collie I had would fetch you a toy correctly, every time, by name alone. Others needed different vocal tones, or sounds, (Mimicking the noises each one made).
Open the door, close the door, fetch your lead, and all the usual commands, even counting. One collie always "kissed" me twice... never once, or thrice, just twice. You can actually see them working stuff out! It's hilarious. There are loads of videos of them doing this out there.

 

[rev_dino]

My Doberman can do all that! Except for the number kissing, but I never thought of that particular trick. I have something new to teach him now!

 

[rynner2]

Dogs 'share their owners' emotions'
The bond between dogs and their owners may be deeper than we thought, according to research that suggests the pets may share their owners' emotions.
11:14AM GMT 18 Feb 2011

When the animals are confronted with a human displaying strong feelings, they themselves produce a similar emotional response, the researchers found.
The discovery could cast light on how dogs' pack behaviour has been translated into the modern world.

Biomedical scientist Dr Karine Silva, of the University of Porto, says that dogs even possess certain human-like social skills that chimpanzees, our closest relatives, do not.
Writing in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, she says the animals' response goes beyond simply mimicing their owners' - a reaction known as "emotional contagion".

Dr Silva said: "A study showing that pets, namely dogs, behave as 'upset' as children when exposed to familiar people faking distress, strongly suggests 'sympathetic concern'.

"Also, it has been reported that untrained dogs may be sensitive to human emergencies and may act appropriately to summon help, which, if true, suggests empathic perspective taking."

The researchers believe there are three main reasons for dogs empathising with human.

Modern pets originated from wolves which are highly social animals that engage in co-operative activities and have developed empathy towards other animal species.

Furthermore, biological chances as dogs were domesticated mean their empathy towards man has been fine-tuned over generations.

And breed diversification and selection for increasingly difficult working tasks, such as herding animals or hunting, have led to more complex understanding of human emotional communication.

The researchers said despite limited research they consider dogs' capacity for emotional contagion and perhaps for some mental processing of humans' emotional states is supported by both anecdotal and experimental data.

One study published 18 months ago found pet dogs tend to yawn when they see people doing the same while another reported five years ago showed pet pooches' stress hormones rose or fell in direct relation to their owner's.
Dr Silva and colleagues said: "Curiously, contagious yawning has been connected to higher levels of empathy in humans, with studies suggesting that it probably shares a developmental basis with self-awareness and perspective taking."

They said research on the empathic abilities of dogs is of special importance for decisions about our obligations towards them.

The researchers went on: "Clearly, there is a need for additional investigations to analyse the emotional and cognitive components that may be involved in dogs' seemingly empathic behaviour towards humans."
They added: "Dogs have been increasingly involved with human activities and further studies are crucial if specific needs are to be met.
"For instance, it would be important to conduct rigorous tests on therapeutic dogs that seem to 'take on' the emotions of patients, needing massages and calming measures after the sessions."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/pets/ ... tions.html

 

[escargot]

My 14 year-old Jack Russell cross has taken to standing at the front door at random times, barking slowly. Not the frenzied alarm-yapping that JRTs normally go in for.

She did this at 3:40 this morning. I checked and there was nothing going on in the street. When I'd had a check around she came to me and made a big fuss, as if I'd just come home. I think she's going senile.

 

[rynner2]

Monkeys 'display self-doubt' like humans
By Victoria Gill
Science and nature reporter, BBC News

[video]

Monkeys trained to play computer games have helped to show that it is not just humans that feel self-doubt and uncertainty, a study says.
US-based scientists found that macaques will "pass" rather than risk choosing the wrong answer in a brainteaser task.

Awareness of our own thinking was believed to be a uniquely human trait.
But the study, presented at the AAAS meeting in Washington DC, suggests that our more primitive primate relatives are capable of such self-awareness.
Professor John David Smith, from State University of New York at Buffalo and Michael Beran, from Georgia State University, carried out the study.

They trained the macaques, which are Old World monkeys, to use a joystick-based computer game.
The animals were trained to judge the density of a pixel box that appeared at the top of the screen as either sparse or dense. To give their answer, the monkeys simply moved a cursor towards a letter S or a letter D.

When the animals chose the correct letter, they were rewarded with an edible treat. There was no punishment for choosing the wrong answer, but the game briefly paused, taking away - for a few seconds - the opportunity for the animals to win another treat.

But the monkeys had a third option - choosing a question mark - which skipped the trial and moved on to the next one. This meant no treat, but it also meant no pause in the game.

The scientists saw that the macaques used this option in exactly the same way as human participants who reported that they found a trial too tricky to answer; they chose to "pass" and move on.

Dr Smith presented footage of the animals playing the game at a session that was organised by the European Science Foundation.
"Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error," he told BBC News. "They seem to know when they don't know."

In the same trial, capuchins, which belong to the group known as New World monkeys, failed to take this third option.

Dr Smith explained: "There is a big theoretical question at stake here: Did [this type of cognition] develop only once in one line of the primates - emerging only in the line of Old World primates leading to apes and humans?"

He said that the capacity think in this way was "one of the most important facets of humans' reflective mind, central to every aspect of our comprehension and learning".
"These results... could help explain why self-awareness is such an important part of our cognitive makeup and from whence it came," he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_ne ... 401945.stm

Macaques are obviously Librans!

 

[rynner2]

Orangutan saves drowning chick
A visitor to US zoo, captured moment when a 15 stone ape mounted a delicate rescue of the young bird, tenderly lifting it from the water using a leaf.

[video]

The curious ape was in its enclosure, when it noticed the bird's struggle in the pond
It yanked a leaf from a nearby bush and extended its arm out to the bird, beckoning to the chick in the hope that it will latch onto the leaf.
Onlookers cheered as orangutan managed to get the bird to grip the leaf for a split second only to have the bird drop again.

In a last-ditch attempt to rescue the chick, the orangutan gently waved the leaf in front of the bird which managed to latch on to it.
The ape plucked the bird from the water to the delight of the crowd. During the clip, one woman can be heard exclaiming: "Oh my God look, that is unbelievable, he's got him."

The massive ape carried the chick back to the main part of its enclosure, where it tenderly placed it down on the grass and proceeded to gently stroke the bird.

Cathy Smith, from the Orangutan Foundation, said: "They are very intelligent animals and can be very inquisitive.
"This shows how chilled out and good at problem solving these amazing creatures are.
"It's hard to say whether he knew he would be saving the chick but you never know. I have never heard of anything like this before."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... chick.html

 

[rynner2]

Devoted dog guards Navy SEAL's coffin
A faithful dog has refused to leave the side of his Navy SEAL owner after he was killed in Afghanistan, lying beside his master's coffin at the funeral.
7:00AM BST 26 Aug 2011

The heartbreaking image of loyal Labrador Hawkeye lying forlornly in front of the coffin of Jon Tumlinson, 35, has made its way around the world since it was posted on Facebook by Tumlinson's cousin.
Petty Officer Tumlinson was one of 38 killed when his helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan early this month.

"I took this picture and that was my view throughout the entire funeral. I couldn't not take a picture," Lisa Tumilson told US television network ABC News.
"It took several attempts since every time I wasn't crying and could focus on taking it, there was a SEAL at the microphone and I didn't want to take a picture with them for security and respect reasons. Our family is devastated to say the least."

Hawkeye led his family down the aisle into the funeral service in Rockford, Iowa, and followed his friend Scott Nichols as he rose to deliver a eulogy, television network MSNBC reported.
The dog then heaved a sigh and dropped down on the ground in front of Petty Officer Tumilson's casket as the speech started and more than about 1500 mourners watched on.

"If J.T. had known he was going to be shot down when going to the aid of others, he would have went anyway," his friend Boe Nankivel said at the service.

Mr Nichols will now look after Hawkeye, television station KTLA said.

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... offin.html

 

[rynner2]

Super Smart Animals - Episode 1.

From skateboarding dogs to chimp maths geniuses, Liz Bonnin searches for the planet's most intelligent animals, and John Humphrys puts a goldfish through its paces on Mastermind.

For centuries, the idea of intelligent animals struck most people as ridiculous. But not any more - the latest science reveals that animals are a lot smarter than we thought.

From skateboarding dogs to chimp maths geniuses, Liz Bonnin embarks on a worldwide search for the planet's most intelligent animals, devising some ingenious IQ puzzles and even putting herself to the test to find out.

Liz gets creative with dolphins, shares a eureka moment with orangutans and defends the reputation of the human race when she goes head to head with a chimp genius in a test of maths and memory. There is an octopus escapologist, John Humphrys puts a goldfish through its paces on Mastermind, and Tillman the skateboarding dog wows crowds in Los Angeles.

Prepare to be amazed, entertained and even outwitted by the world's Super Smart Animals.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_1/

 

[rynner2]

Curious incident of a dead giraffe
By Matt Walker, Editor, BBC Nature

A curious incident of a deceased giraffe has reopened the question of whether animals mourn their dead.
Zoologists have witnessed a giraffe mother investigating and refusing to leave the body of her dead calf, the third such incident on record.

Other social animals such as elephants and chimpanzees are known to investigate their dead, especially the bodies of their close relatives.
Such behaviour raises the prospect that animals have a "mental model" of death.
Details of the latest incident are published in the African Journal of Ecology.

Zoologist Professor Fred Bercovitch studies on behalf of the Primate Research Institute and Wildlife Research Centre at Kyoto University, Japan and the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, based in Purley, Surrey, UK.

While tracking Thornicroft's giraffes in the South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, Prof Bercovitch witnessed a female giraffe splay her legs and bend down to her newborn, but dead calf.
She spent several minutes licking the calf, before standing upright. She then repeated the behaviour a few times, spending more than two hours in total investigating the body of her lost offspring.

The behaviour is striking for a number of reasons.
Females giraffes rarely spend any time alone, yet this individual spent hours with her dead calf away from other females.
Giraffes rarely splay their legs to bend down, apart from when to drink or feed.
And apart from two other similar incidences, giraffes have not been seen intensively investigating their dead.

"The maternal reaction to her dead offspring was not as prolonged as that shown by African elephants," Prof Bercovitch writes in the journal.

Elephants and chimpanzees, which both live in highly social groups, have been seen apparently mourning the loss of their kind.
Elephants become agitated when a member of the herd dies, investigate dead conspecifics and often guard the bodies.
Chimps and snub-nosed monkeys have been recorded carrying dead offspring, often carrying older babies for longer.

But it is worth noting, Prof Bercovitch says, that there also appears to be a gradient in the way giraffes react to their dead.

Of the three incidents so far recorded, one female giraffe spent four days alongside the dead body of her older calf.
That took place in 2010 in the Soysambu Conservancy in Kenya, dubbed "The curious incident of the giraffe in the night."
There, biologist Zoe Muller observed a Rothschild's giraffe stand guard over her one month old calf that had just died. Seventeen other female giraffes surrounded the body at various times during the four days.

In the incident in Zambia, witnessed late last year by Prof Bercovitch, the Thornicroft's giraffe spent two hours with her apparently stillborn offspring.

The final incident occurred in 2011, when a herd of Namibian giraffes stopped to inspect a site where a young female giraffe had died three weeks earlier. A male giraffe stopped walking, splayed his legs and sniffed at the ground. Four other herd members investigated the site in the same way.

However, while the behaviour of elephants and primates has been used to suggest that some mammals are capable of conceptualising death, Prof Bercovitch remains cautious.
The incidents clearly show that giraffe mothers bond with their calves in a more pronounced way than realised, he says.
But the importance of the discovery may also lie more in that it widens the number of species that react when relatives or members of their own kind die.

Only by collecting evidence from a range of species can scientists begin to investigate whether animals do mourn, and when in evolution the trait appeared.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19317067

 

[rynner2]

Birds hold 'funerals' for dead
By Matt Walker, Editor, BBC Nature

Some birds, it seems, hold funerals for their dead.
When western scrub jays encounter a dead bird, they call out to one another and stop foraging.
The jays then often fly down to the dead body and gather around it, scientists have discovered.

The behaviour may have evolved to warn other birds of nearby danger, report researchers in California, who have published the findings in the journal Animal Behaviour.

The revelation comes from a study by Teresa Iglesias and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, US.
They conducted experiments, placing a series of objects into residential back yards and observing how western scrub jays in the area reacted.
The objects included different coloured pieces of wood, dead jays, as well as mounted, stuffed jays and great horned owls, simulating the presence of live jays and predators.

The jays reacted indifferently to the wooden objects.
But when they spied a dead bird, they started making alarm calls, warning others long distances away.
The jays then gathered around the dead body, forming large cacophonous aggregations. The calls they made, known as "zeeps", "scolds" and "zeep-scolds", encouraged new jays to attend to the dead.
The jays also stopped foraging for food, a change in behaviour that lasted for over a day.

When the birds were fooled into thinking a predator had arrived, by being exposed to a mounted owl, they also gathered together and made a series of alarm calls.
They also swooped down at the supposed predator, to scare it off. But the jays never swooped at the body of a dead bird.

The birds also occasionally mobbed the stuffed jays; a behaviour they are known to do in the wild when they attack competitors or sick birds.

The fact that the jays didn't react to the wooden objects shows that it is not the novelty of a dead bird appearing that triggers the reaction.
The results show that "without witnessing the struggle and manner of death", the researchers write, the jays see the presence of a dead bird as information to be publicly shared, just as they do the presence of a predator.

Spreading the message that a dead bird is in the area helps safeguard other birds, alerting them to danger, and lowering their risk from whatever killed the original bird in the first place, the researchers say.

Other animals are known to take notice of their dead.
Giraffes and elephants, for example, have been recorded loitering around the body of a recently deceased close relative, raising the idea that animals have a mental concept of death, and may even mourn those that have passed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19421217

 

[JamesWhitehead]

"It has been observed (not infrequently) that when a member of the flock perishes, the birds will hold what could be called a “raven funeral” – a 24-hour event marked by raucous outcries."

From A 2007 FT Article about ravens

A quick look online turned up a 2009 Mail article about magpies' funerals.

Bird funerals were observed, iirc, by Victorian naturalists - I've drawn a blank, though on Gilbert White, so far.

But I'd call Who Killed Cock Robin? as witness, if a song can be a witness:

"All the birds of the air fell a sighing and sobbing
When they heard of the death of poor cock robin."

Wikipedia gives an earlier version from 1770

 

[rynner2]

I witnessed some interesting swan behaviour today: I was walking N on the new Hayle bridge when a swan flew past me and landed on the road!

Why would it do that? Well, it was landing against the NW wind to lower its ground speed, and it only had to take a few steps before touchdown was complete. In fact, I think that's the first time I've seen a swan land on solid ground.

It then continued to walk N for a while - luckily traffic was light, but this van had to take avoiding action:

After a while it realised there was no quick way down to the water from there, and it turned around and walked south. I watched the strong ebb tide for a while, and then I realised the swan had found a gap in some safety fencing, and was now on top of the harbour wall on the S side of the waterway, maybe 15 ft above the water. I turned my camera towards it, but it immediately launched itself into the air so I was only able to catch it landing, in typical waterski fashion:

This short glide was parallel to the bridge and thus again into the wind. To the lower left of the pic is part of a rocky ridge that divides the shallow, drying area to the north from the deeper channel in the south, and the flow of the ebbing tide can be seen. The swan almost reached this ridge before stopping.

I began to wonder if the swan had realised it couldn't land across the channel from free flight because it would have been a bit higher, and going faster, and that's why it decided to land on the bridge itself.

Interestingly, there were a couple of swans in the shallows near the N shore, but I imagine that to attempt a landing there on a falling tide would have been risky, because apart from rocks there are a few bits of debris in the area which could severely injure the feet of a waterskiing swan.

So not only do swans have to know about wind speed and direction, they need to know about the tides and tidal streams. It could be there's a lot going on in that little head!

Since not all swans live by tidal waters, do they learn about tides from their parents, or just pick it up by themselves?

 

[GNC]

I'm sure I read somewhere recently that swimming birds learn to do so by being taught by their parents, so I suspect it's much the same mechanism in effect here.

 

[rynner2]

Dogs understand human perspective, say researchers
By Sean Coughlan, BBC News education correspondent

Dogs are more capable of understanding situations from a human's point of view than has previously been recognised, according to researchers.
They found dogs were four times more likely to steal food they had been forbidden, when lights were turned off so humans in the room could not see.
This suggested the dogs were able to alter their behaviour when they knew their owners' perspective had changed.
The study, published in Animal Cognition, conducted tests on 84 dogs.

The experiments had been trying to find whether dogs could adapt their behaviour in response to the changed circumstances of their human owners.
It wanted to see if dogs had a "flexible understanding" that could show they understood the viewpoint of a human.

It found that when the lights were turned off, dogs in a room with their human owners were much more likely to disobey and steal forbidden food.
The study says it is "unlikely that the dogs simply forgot that the human was in the room" when there was no light. Instead it seems as though the dogs were able to differentiate between when the human was unable or able to see them.

The experiments had been designed with enough variations to avoid false associations - such as dogs beginning to associate sudden darkness with someone giving them food, researchers said.
Dr Juliane Kaminski, from the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, said the study was "incredible because it implies dogs understand the human can't see them, meaning they might understand the human perspective".

This could also be important in understanding the capacities of dogs that have to interact closely with humans, such as guide dogs for the blind and sniffer dogs.

Previous studies have suggested that although humans might think that they can recognise different expressions on their dogs' faces, this is often inaccurate and a projection of human emotions.
"Humans constantly attribute certain qualities and emotions to other living things. We know that our own dog is clever or sensitive, but that's us thinking, not them," said Dr Kaminski.

"These results suggest humans might be right, where dogs are concerned, but we still can't be completely sure if the results mean dogs have a truly flexible understanding of the mind and others' minds. It has always been assumed only humans had this ability."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21411249

 

[Human_84]

This might have been covered somewhere in the 5 pages, but I've always wondered....

How do certain species of animals know to group up with the same exact species. For example, 2 clownfish. How in gods name does one clownfish know that he is a clownfish? certainly it can't see itself, so why does it team up with the other clownfish? Or 2 silver minnows, same deal. 2 finches, etc. A finch will always hang out with other finches instead of a parrot, etc....

Dogs I can understand. It's pretty obvious they both have 4 legs and tails, are at the same eye level, etc. But what about so many others?