Dinosaur Brains Flight-Ready Long Before They Took To the Air 49
An anonymous reader writes "Dinosaurs evolved the brain power for flight long before they took to the air, new evidence presented in the journal Nature suggests. Contrary to the cliche, a 'bird brain' describes a relatively enlarged brain with the capacity required for flight. However, based on high-resolution X-ray computed tomographic (CT) scans, researchers found that at least a few non-avian dinosaurs had brains as large or larger than Archaeopteryx, one of the earliest known birds, indicating that some dinosaurs already suspected of flight capability would have had the neurological tools to do so."
Re:big brains needed for hunting (Score:5, Interesting)
"How much intelligence do you need to sneak up on a leaf?"
To sneak up on a leaf? Not much. To avoid getting eaten by a lion while you're sneaking up on a leaf? Quite a bit more apparently.
The African buffalo is reportedly rather more intelligent than you might suspect. There are numerous reports of communication, team work and even engaging in vindictive group behaviour like pursuing lions and killing lion cubs.
Journalist misinterprets research article (Score:5, Interesting)