Seagulls eat clams. They break the shells by dropping them onto rocks from a height. They're able to learn to steal food from other birds when they see a chance, and conversely, to regulate from which height to drop clams of different sizes.

All of these require planning and risk assessment abilities. Being able to take a bag of potato chips away from human-infested buildings and opening it is not really that far outside the scope of their adaptations.

Still, crafty little bastards they are indeed.

A few years back I was walking along the SF bay down in the marina with a friend when suddenly I heard a "clunk" and felt a splash of water on my legs. Initially I thought some drunk idiot threw a beer bottle out the window of their car, but a few seconds later a Seagull swooped down, grabbed a clam it had dropped from who knows how high up, and fly off with lunch. I had no idea they did that, I just stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds.

I once watched several seagulls peck at a closed clamshell container containing pizza crusts for over half an hour. Clearly there is an upper bound to their intelligence.

I watched a crack head at the park look for something on the ground for an hour once. Clearly there is an upper bound for human intelligence as well /s

Yep, devoting an hour to watching such activity certainly makes one wonder.

Do seagulls do crack?

It's been reported that younger gulls initially try to open clams (the animal clams, not plastic containers) by pecking. I believe they learn the dropping-from-a-height tactic from observation, and suspect that the pecking at a plastic container is merely due to them not having seen it being open by a gull before. Also, worth considering that in their natural habitat, the only transparent things around (jellyfish) are squishy and stingy.

I once spent ten minutes frantically looking for my wristwatch. It was very stressful, because I had to go to school, and I did not have much time left to catch the bus. So after a while (like I said, about ten minutes), I looked at my wristwatch to see how much time I had left. It took another 30 seconds for me to realize that I had been wearing my wristwatch the whole time.

Being smart does not save you (and not me, either!) from being dumb. And there have been times in my life when I was able to substitute inventiveness with stubbornness.

So there are upper bounds to everyone's intelligence, human or animal[0], genius or idiot. Given the variety we can observe in our fellow humans, I think it's fair to assume birds have their "village idiots", too.

[0] Except for barnacles, of course, but they are very discreet about it.

The differences in intelligence between species is exaggerated

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2013/04/john-paulson-loses-1...

While this appears to be made in both jest and political commentary, I agree that there are bounds to human intelligence.

While we as a species have accomplished a lot, those accomplishments seem to be sparked/possible by the few of us who stop and figure things out or notice something interesting. It seems that most of us take most of the knowledge we have for granted; Even the most essential pieces of our knowledge are passed down, not figured out, by the vast majority of us.

Examples: fire, sanitary practices, what to eat (and what not to eat), language (and writing)

How I justify these examples:

It took a long time (many generations) to harness fire and still more to understand it well enough to use it as we do today. We are still pushing the limits of our understanding of fire (combustion) in microgravity to better understand how it works on Earth.

Sanitary practices are different in different cultures despite all of us having the same basic plumbing. Sure, we can all "poo in a hole" but even in modern times, we've had to re-learn to not make that hole too close to our water supply.

Food: There is no way of knowing what mushrooms will kill you without someone previously taking a hit for the tribe.

Language seems pretty self-explanatory but... there are languages we no longer know and are largely unable to decipher because we have stopped passing them down. Knowledge encoded in those languages may be lost until rediscovered in a new language.

I think the biggest bound to our perceived intelligence is the ability to pass it down. When viewed in the scope of animal intelligence, we often think animals that have learned from other animals are acting more intelligently than those that haven't. The problem is, both groups may be equally intelligent, one group is just more highly trained.

> The more I learn about animal intelligence, the more I suspect we grossly underestimate it.

It goes both ways, in the past we had Clever Hans[1]. People believed Hans could perform simple math, when his cleverness was actually watching his owners expression for small changes. So any observed intelligence ends up under suspicion of them acting on information gained from a much simpler side channel.

[1]https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

The thing about animal intelligence is that it is probably significantly different from ours. In studying it, we must avoid antromorphization of animals.

Mammals are somewhat close to us, but we have diverged from birds over a hundred million years ago and we still struggle to understand how a tiny and smooth brain such as corvids have can produce such an observably intelligent behavior.

Mammals are close to us in the dimensions of reproduction and biological ancestry; also, there are countless mammals which are (way) less intelligent than corvids.

Corvids may have small brains in terms of volume, but not measured by the number of neurons in the areas that count[1].

Maybe animal intelligence is not so different to ours, but our measure is.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/113/26/7255

For something radically different, I'd suggest you look at octopuses. They're as different from human as can be.

Surely BBC or NPR has a decent documentary on the topic.

Yep, given the huge replication crisis for human cognitive science and pyschology, I am not sure how reliable these studies are.

I think this is parent's seagull: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMMVKymf9yA

There is another one fancying cold sandwiches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZZ822Za-nE

I thought it might be this[0], which surprised me how clearly the bird seems to know what it's doing is "wrong" and how it tries to act unsuspecting.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/i69mu1/no...

That's the one, yes! Amazing, aren't they? Walking around nonchalantly, like they own the place. ;-?

"The more I learn about animal intelligence, the more I suspect we grossly underestimate it."

An example of something that might surprise many people: animals can use medicine.

Here is a fascinating podcast that discuss the subject with researchers and experts.

Podcast description:

> Listener Andrew Chen got in touch to ask whether animals use any kind of medicine themselves. After all, our own drugs largely come from the plants and minerals found in wild habitats. So perhaps animals themselves are using medicines they find in nature.

> We think of medicine as a human invention - but it turns out that we’ve learnt a lot of what we know from copying the birds, bugs and beasts.

This podcast is highly recommended - I guarantee you'll come away amazed and humbled by the intelligence of animals.

Do animals use medicine?: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszv77

Blue Planet II depicts a group of Dolphins visiting a certain kind of coral that emits a substance that allegedly helps them fight off parasites.

Earlier BBC documentaries show animals (birds and fish) seek the "service" of certain types of fish to clean them from parasites.

So the idea of animals using medicine is kind of presenting itself. It's not totally in your face, but it's no more out there than prehistoric humans discovering the medicinal properties of certain plants.

There is mention of this in the book ,,Wild Animals I Have Known,, (1898)

I never fully understood why some cultures assume humans must be fundamentally different - it’s not a universal notion.

Some hypothesizes and argues that our ancestors extinguished every other species that showed intelligence by eating them, which I think is a bit too wild of a theory. But maybe the fact that it’s often small birds that shows intelligence is also interesting. They’re among hardest to hunt.

A relevant quote by the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins that always sticks with me regarding the humanity of animals, (paraphrased):

> The attitude that animals are basically humans seems much healthier than the converse.

From his book https://www.prickly-paradigm.com/titles/the-western-illusion...

Descartes considered animals to be little better than automata and given his high social position and intellectual achievements, and the convenience of this argument for his co-religionists, it stuck. Even today (and right here on HN), any sort of conjecture on the inner life of animals tends to bring out a few finger-waggers condemning 'athropmorphism.'

https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/Descartes_versus_Cudwor...

> some cultures assume humans must be fundamentally different - it’s not a universal notion.

Are you referring to hunter gatherers doing a mystical bear or eagle dance? Reincarnation as an ant? in those cases, it is belief in a non-corporeal spirit-being that underpins the other belief. Do you believe in non-corporeal spirit-beings, and if you do, aren't you more mystified by people who don't believe in them; or vice versa?

Otherwise, I'm skeptical and would love citations?

Like, judeo-christianity? Western societies viewpoints on human intelligence and how it relates to animal intelligence for centuries? The notion, typically, is that while humans are animals our intelligence is not just different in degree but different in kind. I think it comes from that bit in the bible where their god places humans as above all other life forms, just a guess though.

you're telling me what I know, where I'm asking about the commenter's claim that there are cultures that do NOT do this

It's not quite the same thing as "intelligence", but in "Braiding Sweetgrass" Robin Wall Kimmerer describes how (at least) several native American cultures ascribe great wisdom to the trees, since they've been here longer, and regard human wisdom as rather primitive.

That's a bit of hyperbole, isn't it? You never understood why some [most] cultures assume humans must be fundamentally different [than other animals]?? Well, smelting iron ore, and a long, long list of other unique accomplishments never replicated by any other species on the planet [or known universe for that matter] tends to crystalize the observation that there is something fundamentally different about this singular species. That animals are smarter than human cultures have ever generally given them credit for doesn't bridge this enormous gulf. Humans generally think less of (underestimate) anything not relevant to their immediate existence, including other humans (from other cultures, time periods, political parties, etc). Same reason my dog is uniquely intelligent, and can even understand English, but dogs in general are not intelligent. Maybe this tendency to denigrate is an evolved survival skill. Nonetheless, call me when the seagulls start splitting atoms.

There is also no other animal with something like the human capacity for language, despite much effort being made to prove the opposite.

> I never fully understood why some cultures assume humans must be fundamentally different - it’s not a universal notion.

Well, riddle me this. In this thread people are marveling at animals doing things like using automatic doors and opening bags of chips. Who would be impressed if a human did these things? I don't exactly find myself persuaded by these examples that actually animal intelligence is just like human intelligence.

> Think about it for a moment, the bird has to understand (to a degree) how an automatic door works

I'm not sure I see that, that is, the "understanding" part. I mean, this is not some new kind of behavior, even if everyone here reacts with surprise. Anyone with a pet dog or cat knows the various mischief they can get into. Many of us have been at the beach and watched seagulls do all sorts of interesting stuff. Animals aren't "dumb" and I don't know anyone who would say that they are. What people do object to is the unwarranted inference that because they display what looks like clever behavior then this must entail capacity for abstract thought with concepts. I don't see how abstraction is necessary in these examples at all. Language in the fullest sense demonstrates the existence of abstract thought. Non-human language does not appear to show any sign of descriptive and argumentative function, only signalling and expression (in the Popperian sense).

crows do team work to figure out machines

monkeys can team up to resolve non trivial coordinated tasks

(vaguely related: gorillas still have the zero lag face recognition)

beside not speaking, often when I look at animals, it feels that they got wiser than us.. they could do more smart things but they just coast.

I have been training the crows in my neighbourhood to solve puzzles. They visit me every day now.

One goal I'm really excited about is to see if they can solve a puzzle that requires two crows to work together, because I've only seen videos of individual crows solving puzzles online. Can you tell me more about the teamwork that you're referring to? Are there videos or papers I can look at? I'm super curious!

Thanks!

Yes, adding a +1 to sibling comment: do tell about your puzzles. We've got some crows that just get bitchy if their bird bath gets dry, I'd like a more positive interaction if possible. :-)

I guess it's not team work per se .. I forgot the details when I wrote the message above

this TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_a_thought_experiment_...

with a peanut machine to attract them and regularly make the setup more intricate to see if they manage to find the metaphorical key to get more seeds. more like crowd strategy search ?

What are the puzzles? How did you entice them to start?

It all began just before the pandemic, when I saw some YouTube videos about crow intelligence that blew me away. There were crows all over my neighbourhood, so I left out peanuts on my balcony, and eventually a crow started coming by to get them. I would replenish them at night and the crow would come the next day.

After I did this consistently for a while, the crow came every morning. So then I decided to hide the peanuts in a container. I had a retainer case that springs open when you press on a button; I taped it to the railing and left it open with a peanut in it. The crow was very suspicious of it at first, giving it a wide berth while examining it from all sides. It took about a week for it to work up the courage to steal the peanut from the open container, and then another week for it to get used to the idea that the container wasn't going to cause it harm. Then I closed the container.

The crow learned to peck the button to pop open the retainer case, and that's when I got hooked. The crow brought over its partner, and later in the spring as I was stuck at home in lockdown, its fledgling came along too, and they would show the fledgling how to get the peanuts. I started putting out a series of different containers, and then eventually got them a dog intelligence toy, which they aced. I think these crows aren't as smart as the New Caledonian crows in the videos; it takes them a few days or weeks of experimenting to figure out a puzzle. It got to the point where I had four or five crows basically chilling at my house on most days, playing with the toys and taking baths and discussing the puzzles. I have way too much webcam footage of all this, which I've been meaning to post but haven't had the time to sort through and edit.

I have since moved to a new house and had to say goodbye to those crows. :( I have new crow friends now, though! I toss them peanuts whenever I see them on my street, and now they will follow me for a couple blocks if I walk by. This time I've made them a nice platform to land on, and they're learning to open containers, and are starting to play with a dog intelligence toy now.

To expand on your mention of crows.

Not only do crows learn to recognize PEOPLE by their FACES, they teach their offspring to avoid/mistrust those same people. Those offspring teach their offspring. So the "grandchild" of the original bird learns to avoid a specific person. *(Note the documentary I watched with this revelation didn't follow any further generations. We don't know how many generations are taught this lesson.)

Think about that for a minute. I don't recognize the people that live 2 houses away from me, these birds teach their young that SPECIFIC humans are dangerous.

This isn't the study I watched, but it's close. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/grudge-holding...

YES! I am pretty sure I have watched the same documentary! It was the one that a town hired a falconer to try to get rid of a murder of crows that had decided to move in?

That documentary was so interesting(in my opinion at least). I think it might be on Youtube, but I don't remember the name.

This one impressed me so much, I never looked at Crows again the same way:

"Are Crows the Ultimate Problem Solvers?"

https://youtu.be/cbSu2PXOTOc

They are smart but TBH that crow already did all the sub-puzzles independently, he knew what the possible moves are just had to execute them in some order.

To be fair, that's how most of us approach puzzle games. "Okay I've learnt the individual tricks, now let me just try piecing them together in the order that they become available."

Yes but usually you have 100s or millions of possible combinations, in that crow puzzle he had to do 5 things and the order between 2,3,4 didn't matter. Effectively permutation of 3 so 6 possible orderings :)

I dont think a Dog could do the connecting of the several tasks. What about this one?

"Smart Crow uses cars to crack nuts in Akita, Japan near Senshu Park"

https://youtu.be/NenEdSuL7QU

I'm pretty sure some dogs could do this (if the tasks were changed to suit their natural range of motions and interactions with environment). When you teach a dog 4 tricks and try to teach him 5th he will randomly repeat the previous 4 in different combinations trying to get the treat. At least some dogs, others don't care much and if the first thing isn't working they give up.

My parents had a dog that was very smart and pretty aggressive to our cat. He had a dog kennel in a small section of backyard enclosed with high fence. Near the fence there was a small cherry tree where our cat liked to climb.

Cat wouldn't climb the tree when the dog was outside of his part of backyard, so the dog not only learnt to open the gate to the rest of the backyard (lifting a wire loop over the fence and pulling it just right), but also to shut it slightly to fool the cat. He would lie there pretending the gate is still closed, not reacting to the cat. Cat would climb the tree and then the dog would stop pretending, open the gate, go under the tree and bark at the cat till we come and free him. If we weren't home that could take hours - neighbors weren't too pleased.

Other example is dogs burying and re-burying treats when they see each other watching them bury it. That requires at least rudimentary theory of mind.

As for crows - I've personally seen them doing this trick (on a parking lot not on a pedestrian crossing, but same thing - they understood where the traffic is just right to be used for nut-cracking).

They are also huge assholes to other animals, bullying them in very creative ways.

I don't doubt crows are smart, just don't think that experiment was that impressive.

One time when my daughter was 2 years old, riding on my wife's back in an Ergo baby carrier while we were walking up the Brighton Pier eating an apple, a seagull came stealthily hovering in from behind on the strong winds and took a bite out of the apple from my daughter's dangling arm before any of us could react.

90% of communication for humans is body language and sensory cues.

It’s not hard for me to see how our language faculty convinced past humans we were somehow masters of reality beyond other creatures.

Past humans did pass on a lot of dumb ideas.

I am quite sure that crows could solve leetcode mediums in under 30 minutes.