Super intelligent birds, good at tricks and imitating other birds

Blue jays are often seen with beautiful blue, white and black plumage that is hard to take your eyes off. They can steal food and eggs from other birds, and imitate the sounds of other birds.

Jays eat the usual insects and small animals such as invertebrates, amphibians and some other species, and occasionally also eat fruits and some seeds.

Jays nest in trees and large bushes, their nests are relatively shallow. They usually lay 3-5 eggs. They are very good at imitating the songs of other species, so their sounds are diverse and complex, but the most common is a high-pitched call like a whistle or flute.

The jay is widely distributed in the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent west of the Himalayas, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. When fully grown, the body length including tail is about 65-68 cm, the estimated weight is 196-232 g.

Life - Super intelligent birds, good at tricks and imitating other birds — A jay (Internet photo)

Recently, Cambridge University published a study showing that the ability of jays to control themselves is not inferior to humans.

Specifically, in the experiment, jays were served different foods, but in order to eat more of the delicious food (worms), they had to skip the less delicious food (bread), and had to wait longer.

After realizing they would be rewarded if they waited longer, the birds accepted the challenge.

Jays are known as one of the most intelligent birds. So what makes them so special?

The researchers used a new technique to estimate the number of neurons concentrated in a part of the bird's brain called the pallium.

The pallium in birds is comparable to the cerebral cortex of humans or mammals, which is the part of the brain involved in memory, learning, reasoning, and problem solving.

Although the pallium of birds lacks the cortical layers of mammals, they are interconnected in an organized manner, resulting in feathered and mammalian species having comparable cognitive abilities.

When a team from McGill University in Canada studied 111 bird species and collected information from more than 4,000 different foraging strategies, they found that birds with a high concentration of neurons in the pallium were the most creative.

The jay, whose scientific name is Urocissa Erythroryncha, is a bird of the crow family. This bird is also very popular as a pet bird because of its beautiful colorful appearance.

Quoc Tiep (according to Nghe An Newspaper , ANTĐ, Kien Thuc)

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