Reptiles Known as 'Living Rocks' Show Surprising Cognitive Powers (nature.com) 23
Giant tortoises can learn and remember tasks, and master lessons much faster when trained in groups. From a report: Tamar Gutnick and Michael Kuba at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, and Anton Weissenbacher at Schonbrunn Zoo in Vienna trained Galapagos tortoises (Chelonoides nigra) and Aldabra tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea) to bite a ball of a particular colour -- blue, green or yellow. When tested three months later, the tortoises recalled the task. The authors tested three of the tortoises again after nine years and found that all three responded to toys of the correct colour. The researchers also found that both species of tortoise could be conditioned with fewer training sessions if they were taught in groups than if learning occurred in isolation, hinting that tortoises learn from watching their peers.
Well if you consider how slowly they live... (Score:1)
Clickbait (Score:2)
I was disappointed by the clickbait in the summary title, only to discover that it is copied from the original (Nature!) article. :(
Is it new? (Score:2)
Intelligent (Score:3)
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But it's true that there's a whole cottage industry of teaching animals to do new things and concluding they are "surprisingly smart!" You never hear about a species being surprisingly dumb. I suppose this is sort of an application of parsimony / Occam's razor, which leads us to generally presume (though
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What constitutes "surprising" cognitive powers is subjective of course, but turtles are reptiles, which are not the smartest bunch. Their brains are very small. Not nearly as smart as dogs for example.
Are they not as smart? Or is there brain different from a mammal brain? Of course a dog would seem smarter to a human as we are both mammals and are likely more similar. Most reptiles are not as social as mammals either. So they don't need to waste brain mass on a lot of social concepts. Reptiles, for the most part, don't need to worry about facial expressions. I also found it surprising that a turtle would learn better in a group setting.
The fact that they could remember this after so many years should c
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There's plenty of intelligent non-mammalian species. The primary issue is that we apply an anthropomorphic view of intelligence on the individual species instead of assessing their intelligence from the bottom up. This is why dogs often get rated as highly intelligent. Their wild counterpart does express complex intelligence but it was the domestication to make humans part of the pack that causes dogs to be view so well.
Ants are surprisingly intelligent. Even from an anthropomorphic viewpoint they are the o
Wtf editors titling for 1st graders now? (Score:4, Funny)
"Living rocks"
First, I've never - in 52 years on this planet -breasts them called that.
Second, why would you put that in a title for anything but a 6 year old?
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Fuck autocorrect.
And fuck a website that doesn't allow simple edits of comments. 2002 would like to explain html to you.
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Yes, er, yea- Such wert what I intendeth, verily!
BTW (Score:2)
I remember a fortune cookie once telling me that I should move more or people would think I was a rock.
Living Rock, where have I seen this before . . . (Score:3, Funny)
not impressed (Score:2)
They're not so smart! I can learn to bite a ball of a certain color too. And I could probably remember which color it was. I mean, it's not like they have anything else to do. They can just sit around, like a rock, and say to themselves "red ball, red ball, etc" all day long. And when they learn in groups, they cheat and remind each other during the test.
Nice and cool ... (Score:2)
... but not surprising at all,
for anyone not subscribing to the Church of Humans Specialness and superiority.
These are the times where I wish we had some human-eating predators with actual chances. Not only because it certainly would stop the vegan pseudo-argument dead in its tracks. :)
Just ask some turtles (Score:2)
How they could find their way back to their birth place beach, sometimes a quarter of globe away, to lay eggs.
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Waze?
Previously Monitor Lizards now Tortoises (Score:2)
I remember seeing some videos about how Komodo dragons were pretty darn trainable. They talked about it like monitor lizards were the only ones anybody could train. And it was cool, because it seems so many experts and knowledgeable pop culture icons (The Croc Hunter) consider reptiles to be nearly 100% instinctual reaction machines.
Looks like our good ole giant tortoise friends have the same ability. Cool!