X-Message-Number: 4316
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 21:05:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: Re: Bird memory

On Wed, 26 Apr Thomas Donaldson wrote:
... raises lots of questions about the nature of intelligence, and as we
> learn more about other animals we've sometimes found that they have 
> specialized mental abilities greater than our own. Some birds store food
> for themselves in the winter, and remember precisely the exact locations 
> where they put it (they don't store it all in one place). These come to
> thousands of locations. 

I question whether all the apparent memory of birds (and others, in a 
variety of situations) is necessarily memory, or perhaps a memory of a 
general area, augmented by some sensory perception that is either outside 
our range, or one we do not use ourselves.

Perhaps they smell the food they hid.  Perhaps squirrels do the same thing.
People used to think elephants had an uncanny memory for waterholes 
across deserts, until people discovered that they were communicating with 
elephants already there, communicating at - to us - subsonic frequencies 
which weren't detected until electronic recordings were being made.  
Perhaps birds, seeing into the ultraviolet, can see patterns and events 
in the air and on the ground, rather than needing to remember as much 
detail as we assume.

In brief, because we know that some creatures have a wider range of 
sensory awareness than we do, we can expect them to be using memory or 
instinct less than it might appear.

Best wishes,

Robin HL


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