Comparing the "Why birds are smart" research paper to the "Gravity Gives These Birds the Drop on Tough-to-Crack Foods” news article

 The news article, “Gravity Gives These Birds the Drop on Tough-to-Crack Foods” by Priyanka Runwal, shows one way that birds use their brain in a cognitive way. How are birds able to eat foods with hard shells on them? Birds such as gulls, crows, and eagles use the benefits of hard surfaces like rocks and pavements to break their food into pieces with not as much effort as trying to break the seal with their beaks. This news article relates to the “Why birds are smart” by Onur Güntürkün, Roland Pusch, and Jonas Rose research paper that explains the intelligence in birds by comparing their brain structure and function to primates. This article focused on corvids and parrots, similar to Runwal in the sense that birds are capable of assessing the distance they need to be off the ground and type of surface that the food should be impacted by. Supported by gulls being able to assess the size of the clam to the distance that needs to be off the ground and type of ground surface (paved parking lot or mudflat) that would crack open the clam better. They also plan for the future by conserving energy by not having to fly a greater distance up, (I would think this is similar to humans walking on a windy day.) by throwing the heaviest clams closer to the paved parking lot. If they were to crack it open on the mudflat area, they would remain shut. They would need to go higher up for the clam to open. 

The research article “Why birds are smart”, they look into the intelligence capacity of birds. NCL (nidopallium caudolaterale) is a part of the avian brain that functions similarly to the PFC (prefrontal cortex) in mammals. The NCL is involved in working memory, aspects of cognition. Working memory in birds looks like the process of birds figuring out the distance to drop the object and what type of surface to drop it on. The research uses evidence to support their statement about brain size not having anything to do with knowledge but the number of associative pallial neurons having to do with birds' knowledge. Ravens, similarly to the birds talked about in Runwal’s article, plan for the future and remember what methods for cracking shells work and which methods don’t work. The memory stored in the hippocampus is supported by Runwal discussing birds not being able to crack shells when they are young and it is a skill that is learned from practice. Gulls when they are young peck at the clams, instead of dropping them. They learn as adults to drop the clams as it’s more fast and efficient than pecking at the clam. 

Güntürkün, O., Pusch, R., & Rose, J. (2024). Why birds are smart. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 28(3), 197-209.

Runwal, P. (2020, February 12). Gravity Gives These Birds the Drop on Tough-to-Crack Foods. Audubon. https://www.audubon.org/news/gravity-gives-these-birds-drop-tough-crack-foods