Biology|Blue and white tit showed signs of event memory. According to the researchers, the development of the ability may have been influenced by the feeding of the species.
Blue and tall tea ceremony remember what they have eaten and where and when they found the food.
This was found out when the researchers constructed a series of memory tests for 94 wild, free-living blue and red tits.
The study was published by Current Biology -science magazine, and the University of Cambridge informed about it on their website.
In tests sunflower seeds and peanut pieces were served at different rates in two different feeders.
The foods were selected for the experiments, because it has been found that the tadpole and blue tit like sunflower seeds more.
When the bird was first spotted at the sunflower seed vending machine, it started a two-hour serving time. After this time, the closing time began, during which the door of the machine remained closed to this individual bird.
Individual servings were carried out with the help of rings that follow the radio frequency and food containers that respond to them and open automatically.
Of birds in order to pass the test, he had to remember that during closing time there was no favorite food on offer, only less desirable food.
The titmice were able to do this, because they did not check separately to see if sunflower seeds were still available during the closing time.
In the second test, the feeders were arranged in the shape of a triangle or a straight line. Only one of them had food, and the birds had to return to it again from many machines.
The vast majority of tits passed this test as well. In the tests, only the first return to the machines was counted.
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Blue and tall tea ceremony were chosen for the study because they are opportunistic collectors that utilize a wide variety of food.
It may be useful for them to remember environmental details from a particular experience.
The study’s lead author, a PhD student in comparative cognitive science at the University of Cambridge by James Davies according to the results show that tits have a more flexible memory than previously thought.
It resembles episodic memory, i.e. event memory, which stores personal, time- and place-related experiences. A memory like that has previously been tested on crows that hide food.
“This study focuses on smaller-brained birds that don’t hide their food. Our findings suggest that these birds are smarter than they have been thought to be,” says Davies in the release.
Event memory similar memory has been observed more and more in animals, says the professor of comparative cognitive science at the University of Cambridge Nicola Clayton. Back in the 1990s, it was assumed that the ability belonged only to humans.
Researcher in Behavioral Ecology, University of East Anglia Gabrielle Davidson states that by studying birds in the wild, more realistic results were obtained than what would have been obtained with birds living in captivity.
“It was startling to see these birds perform so well on our memory tasks at the same time that they were experiencing a lot more in nature,” Davidson states in the announcement.
The memory development of the titmice may have been influenced by the bird boards provided by humans.
“It’s possible that these birds follow and remember our bird-board filling routines,” says Davidson.
According to the researchers, more research is needed on the effects of feeding on the development of birds and on whether a memory such as event memory has an advantage for an individual bird.
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