Meet the brains of the animal world

READING COMPREHENSION : BIRDS

"In the past, people thought birds were stupid," laments the aptly named
scientist Christopher Bird.
But in fact, some of our feathered friends are far
cleverer than we might think.
And one group in particular - the corvids - has
astonished scientists with extraordinary feats of
memory, an ability to employ complex social
reasoning

and,

perhaps

most

strikingly,

remarkable aptitude for crafting and using tools.

Mr Bird, who is based at the department of
zoology

at

Cambridge

University

and

is

supervised by Dr Nathan Emery, says: "I would

Some corvids, such as rooks, live in

rate corvids as being as intelligent as primates in large groups

many ways."

The corvids - a group that includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays and
magpies - contain some of the most social species of birds.
And some of their intelligence is played out against the backdrop of living with
others, where being intelligent enough to recognize individuals, to form alliances
and foster relationships is key.
However, group living can also lead to deceptive behaviour - and western scrub jays
(Aphelocoma californica) can be the sneakiest of the bird-bunch.
Many corvids will hide stores of food for later consumption, especially during the
cold winter months when resources are scarce, but western scrub jays take this one
step further
Mr Bird says: "If they are being watched, they will hide their food, but they will do
some 'fake hides' as well - so they'll put their beak in the ground, but not place the
food. It's a bit like a confusion strategy.
"Sometimes, if they are being watched, then they'll even go back and hide the food
again."
You looking at me?
Corvids' cognisance of other birds has led scientists to ponder whether they are also
aware of themselves.
And to test this, scientists use the Gallup mark test, where an animal is marked on
a part of its body that it cannot normally see and is then shown its reflection in a
mirror.
If it notices this mark and tries to remove it, then it suggests that the animal knows
it is looking at itself and could possess some kind of self-awareness.

So far, only some species of primates have consistently passed this self-recognition
test, although more recent studies suggest elephants and dolphins may also
respond.
But last year, a German team revealed that magpies, marked with a coloured
sticker under their beaks, tried to remove it when presented with a mirror - the first
time a bird had been seen to pass this test.
Professor Onur Gunturkun, from Ruhr-University Bochum, one of the authors of the
Plos paper, says: "It throws out the assumption that only higher mammals were
capable of self-recognition."
Answer using your own words:
1- How are corvids more intelligent than primates in some ways?
2- What type of strategies do some corvids use?
3- What other groups of animals are capable of self recognition apart from
corvids
4- What assumption has been discarded after this research?

Answer True of False to the following statements,

(use sentences in the text to

support it)
1- Corvids are capable of using tools
2- The Gallup mark test is used to establish if these birds are aware of
themselves in front of a mirror.

Find the synonimes in the text it could be a word or a short phrase.

1- friendships
2- little
3- consider
4- self-awareness

writing
How do you define intelligence? How do you define what does it means to
understand something?