Birds are amazing creatures with some incredible abilities. While some birds are quite smart, the majority seem to be dumb compared to other animals. This reputation is, at least in part, due to the fact that many birds have very small brains.

Researchers from the University of Bristol, UK wondered whether the ‘bird brain’ reputation was fitting or an unfair assumption based on the size of their brains.

So, they set up a series of tests to better evaluate the intelligence of several species of birds. They intentionally left out the traditionally intelligent birds like ravens, crows, cockatoos, and parrots, instead focusing on birds known to have smaller brain-to-body ratios. This includes emus, rheas, and ostriches.

The study, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports, came up with tests that were used to offer insights into their intelligence.

When measuring the intelligence of any animal, including birds, you want to come up with a way to incentivize them to complete some type of complex task, and that incentive is almost always going to be food.

Typically, researchers will hide food within an object and see if the animal can find a way to open it up. In the paper, the team notes that they came up with a different option.

“We appreciate [they] would be the preferred approach of many scholars, particularly when working with new taxa.”

So, they instead came up with a new test where the team put food into one compartment that was covered by a wheel. When the wheel was turned, it would eventually line up two holes, allowing the bird to access the food. They explained that this was an abstract idea for animals since they needed to combine the two openings together, which is seen to be more complex than just finding a way to open something.

The birds did a surprisingly good job. Fay Clark was the lead author on the study, and when talking with IFLScience, she said:

“The birds exceeded our expectations. From prior accounts of these birds, we expected them to peck indiscriminately at anything we put in front of them. We thought they might randomly poke the task and the wheel would move in any direction.” Instead, she continues, “they moved the wheel in the correct direction (towards food, not away) 9 times out of 10.”

The study found that three out of three emus studied and one of the rhea got the solutions on the first try. This is not just a matter of random chance either. The birds were able to complete the task more than 50 times, showing that they truly understood the challenge that they had to overcome.

When it came to the ostriches, however, they did not fare as well. None of them were even able to spin the wheel at all. Clark says:

“We […] need to give the ostriches another shot. We do not know why the ostriches in our study performed so poorly – it could be a true cognitive difference, but could also be their personality and disinterest in the task at the time. We need to recruit more ostriches for further work.”

In the end, however, the study shows that even birds that are not traditionally considered intelligent are actually smarter than many people give them credit for.

So much for ‘bird brain’ being used as an insult.

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