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Black kites might use fire to flush out prey
Topic Started: Jan 31 2018, 04:39 PM (412 Views)
Datura
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https://www.livescience.com/61375-fire-spreading-raptors.html
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Yiqi15
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Oh, I remember seeing a thing like this. This has pretty strong implications for accipitrid intelligence.

On the other hand, is it just that all animals are highly intelligent, and have we just begun realising it?
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Yiqi15
Jan 31 2018, 04:51 PM
On the other hand, is it just that all animals are highly intelligent, and have we just begun realising it?
Probably not all animals (I would, for example, very much doubt a sponge has any sort of intelligence), but I would agree that there are a fair number of animals that are far more intelligent than we have previously assumed.
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Tartarus
Jan 31 2018, 06:14 PM
but I would agree that there are a fair number of animals that are far more intelligent than we have previously assumed.
Theres also the fact that most animals have their intelligence suited to their own niches. A moose won't need a high intelligence to figure out how to dig for water.
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Scrublord
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We already know accipitrids can be intelligent. Both Egyptian vultures and black-breasted buzzards use rocks to smash open the eggs of large flightless birds (ostriches and emus, respectively). Assuming such intelligence is common in birds of prey, I would readily accept the reports of black kites carrying fire.

That said, I wonder how widespread this behavior is-- the black kite is found from Africa to Australia, but all of the reports of fire-carrying seem to be from Australia. If kites from other parts of the world do the same thing, could it have had an impact on humans? Could early humans have learned to use fire as a tool by watching kites?
Edited by Scrublord, Jan 31 2018, 09:15 PM.
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Scrublord
Jan 31 2018, 09:11 PM
That said, I wonder how widespread this behavior is-- the black kite is found from Africa to Australia, but all of the reports of fire-carrying seem to be from Australia. If kites from other parts of the world do the same thing, could it have had an impact on humans? Could early humans have learned to use fire as a tool by watching kites?
What if its the other way around, with kites learning from humans using fire?
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Scrublord
Jan 31 2018, 09:11 PM
We already know accipitrids can be intelligent. Both Egyptian vultures and black-breasted buzzards use rocks to smash open the eggs of large flightless birds (ostriches and emus, respectively).
It should be noted that this behaviour is innate and not learned in at least Egyptian vultures, meaning that even vultures that have never seen another vulture use a rock will still instinctively know how to use a rock to crack open an egg, while a monkey or ape that hasn't seen another monkey or ape using a rock as a tool might not know the right technique because their use of tools is a learned ability that has to be passed down, so using this as an example of "intelligence" might be questionable.
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Chuditch
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I thought we knew this for a while. I've always heard of Australian Black Kites using fire to flush out prey and starting new fires. I don't see how this is new information. It's still awesome though.
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Yiqi15
Jan 31 2018, 09:46 PM
Scrublord
Jan 31 2018, 09:11 PM
That said, I wonder how widespread this behavior is-- the black kite is found from Africa to Australia, but all of the reports of fire-carrying seem to be from Australia. If kites from other parts of the world do the same thing, could it have had an impact on humans? Could early humans have learned to use fire as a tool by watching kites?
What if its the other way around, with kites learning from humans using fire?
A curious idea but looking at things like difference in primate and bird intelligence, other examples of people learning skills from animals and hunter gather myths of animals bestowing humans with skills (the crow is commonly attributed to giving the Aborigines fire... maybe it was an evolution from the kite over tens of thousands of years?) means that I would completely be unsurprised if the use of fire in this way was at least partially influenced by ancient humans observing animals.
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ZoologicalBotanist
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This reminds me of an article I once read on a school website called Achive3000 about some scientists who were studying the ability of a crow to plan ahead using a treat reward system. In that system, a crow could turn in a bottle cap right away for a dog treat, or wait and get something better. Most of the crows chose to wait, which I thought was cool, because I always thought that crows were intelligent creatures.
Edited by ZoologicalBotanist, Feb 1 2018, 08:10 PM.


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Troll Man
Jan 31 2018, 10:03 PM
Scrublord
Jan 31 2018, 09:11 PM
We already know accipitrids can be intelligent. Both Egyptian vultures and black-breasted buzzards use rocks to smash open the eggs of large flightless birds (ostriches and emus, respectively).
It should be noted that this behaviour is innate and not learned in at least Egyptian vultures, meaning that even vultures that have never seen another vulture use a rock will still instinctively know how to use a rock to crack open an egg, while a monkey or ape that hasn't seen another monkey or ape using a rock as a tool might not know the right technique because their use of tools is a learned ability that has to be passed down, so using this as an example of "intelligence" might be questionable.
but each vulture learns the best way to drop that rock, given the winds and rock types, etc.

even if "pick up rock and fly" is innate, that doesn't mean the rest of it is.

'cause chimps innately pluck plants and stuff and will stick it anywhere they can if given the chance.
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