Homing pigeons 'pass on flight path knowledge through generations'
GETTY Pigeons might have the rare ability to build on knowledge from others
Scientists from Oxford University believe homing pigeons may share the human capacity to build on the knowledge of others, which explains why their navigational accuracy improves over time. The ability to gather, pass on and improve on knowledge over generations is known as cumulative culture. Until now humans and some other primates were the only species thought to be capable of it.
Takao Sasaki and Dora Biro, Research Associates in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, conducted a study testing whether homing pigeons can gradually improve their flight paths, over time. They removed and replaced individuals in pairs of birds that were given a specific navigational task. Ten chains of birds were released from the same site and generational succession was simulated with the continuous replacement of birds familiar with the route with inexperienced birds who had never flown the course before.
GETTY It was previously thought only humans and some primates had the ability
The idea was that these individuals could then pass their experience of the route down to the next pair generation, and also enable the collective intelligence of the group to continuously improve the route's efficiency.
Our study shows that pigeons share these abilities with humans Takao Sasaki
The findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest that over time, the student does indeed become the teacher and pigeons learn from each other. Their homing performance improved consistently over generations - they streamlined their route to be more direct, making them faster than those that worked the route out on their own. Mr Sasaki, co-author and Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology said: “At one stage scientists thought that only humans had the cognitive capacity to accumulate knowledge as a society.
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“Our study shows that pigeons share these abilities with humans, at least to the extent that they are capable of improving on a behavioural solution progressively over time. Nonetheless, we do not claim that they achieve this through the same processes.“ Dora Biro, co-author and Associate Professor of Animal Behaviour concludes: “One key novelty, we think, is that the gradual improvement we see is not due to new 'ideas' about how to improve the route being introduced by individual birds.
GETTY The ability allows a group of pigeons to continually find the most efficient route