New Study: Simple Animals Can Exhibit Higher reasoning powers
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 4:06PM Fascinating insight into some creatures we wouldn't normally suspect of having higher reasoning powers. Might make you wonder what else we're missing in the world outside?
Biologists from Duke University report that lizards have some of the same creative problem-solving abilities that birds and mammals do. Their findings appear in the current issue of Biology Letters.
The researchers, Manuel Leal and Brian Powell, exposed tropical lizards in Puerto Rico known as Anolis evermanni to a blue disc. Beneath the disc was some tasty prey — a freshly killed worm larva.
Four of the six lizards tested were able to get to the worm in one of two ways, either by biting the disc or by sticking their snouts underneath it and prying it off.
“Most people believed their behavior may be more robotic or not as flexible,” said Dr. Leal, the study’s lead author. But the lizards were creative, he said, using skills “which have no real ecological relevance.”
Read the full story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/science/19oblizard.html?_r=2&ref=science