Scrub-jays show their smarts

The California scrub-jay, a generally non-social bird, can learn just as well as another species of jay that lives in groups, a finding that surprised animal intelligence researchers who devised a novel food puzzle to study cognition in the wild. The research illustrates the complexity of the link between social behavior and the evolution of intelligence, say the scientists, who had expected the group-oriented Mexican jay to outperform the scrub-jay. The international collaboration that included Oregon State University’s Jonathon Valente was led by the University of California Santa Barbara’s Kelsey McCune when she was at the University of Washington. Findings were published in Nature Scientific Reports. Read more news and research here: https://today.oregonstate.edu/