RE: [gecko]Intelligence question.

[Peter Mudde]

Ah well.I knew a gray african parrot who used to call the names of the dogs he lived in the same house with. These (Daschhounds I think they are called in english, not the least smart of dogs either) never stopped running in, barking hoping to be fed or walked.. My guess is that the parrot had its equivalent of a good laugh every time. 

But I still hold that in quickly (instantly) coping with a new environment lizards are hard to beat. But then intelligence is what is measured in the Stanford -Binet test (that was the name I was looking for.. ) and indeed any attempt to measure intelligence in an animal is to measure antropomorph behaviour in that animal.

Or, to quote Douglas Adams:

 ...Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than
dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York,
wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck
about in the water having a good time. But conversely the
dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for
precisely the same reasons.

Peter Mudde

 

 

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Namens PetCrazy
Verzonden: vrijdag 31 oktober 2003 3:00
Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Onderwerp: RE: [gecko]Intelligence question.

Peter,

My macaw and conure both know how to get in and out of their cages just fine. Both are very aware of the fact that's a food and water place, and safe haven to sleep. My conure was known for escaping his cage ever since he began eating more solid foods (to the annoyance of his breeder), and my macaw goes in his cage himself at night, and goes in when I ask him to.  "Go in your cage" is all I need to say (Or "fungow" since Kantonese was his first language), and he'll say "K" and go inside...if he doesn't WANT to go in his cage, he'll try to outsmart me...he'll begin making his way leisurely into his cage, but JUST as he gets to the door he'll grab the bar just above it, swing in, then swing out as I go to close the cage and he'll go ontop of the cage instead then LAUGHS. Yes, this bird laughs at you....

Yesterday a friend of mine came to visit, she came up the stairs and saw him in the living room. Once he saw her he said "Hello"...she didn't answer, she spoke to me instead, asking why he was there. He said again a bit louder "HElLo?" she still didn't answer, a more insistant HELLO followed. He was getting impatient, she was ignoring him...then he said it Slooowly as if she were stupid and didn't get what he was saying. I told her "He wants you to say hello" so she said "Hello Uno" to him... to this he just chuckled. He probably thought she was pretty dumb for not answering him. And when I told him Bye to get him to say it for her...he just looked at me...I wasn't GOING anywhere yet, why should he say goodbye?...it wasn't till I picked up my jacket and started heading down the stairs that he said "BYE BYE!!". No, you can't claim this is 'trigger trained' behavior. Since he has his own bedroom (he shares with two other birds I'll admit), and was only in the livin g room a couple of days since someone needed the guest room. So he couldn't have learned to say goodbye when someone went down the stairwell.

I think my little bird brains have some brains don't you think.