Have you ever been conned by an animal?

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For instance a pigeon just pretended to have a broken wing. felt sorry for it, gave it something to eat. then it gets up cocks its head at me and flies off. Amusing...Maybe I'm just sad

Yeah. Every day. I own a parrot. Pigeons are the closest relative to parrots. Birds' intelligence is vastly underrated. It's totally not inconceivable that that bird intentionally tricked you to get what it wants. They do this. People who've never been around a bird very long do not believe this is true, but just about any good parrot owner (where their many needs are provided for properly) would verify it.

I totally agree that the intelligence of birds can be extraordinary -- pigeons are thought to be among that group, including parrots, to be considered the most intelligent birds on the planet, and have been in studies where it was found they can be taught to distinguish the letters of the entire alphabet and pick them out, similar to apes under the same clinical programs. They can also pass the "mirror test" in which an animal is able to understand that the image in the mirror is not another animal but is themselves -- only a few other animals can do this, including dolphins and elephants, both known for off the charts intelligence.

Pigeons are among those bird species who mate for life and both raise young together in a co-parenting effort.

Pigeons also have the ability to learn, recognize and distinguish between different human faces, and remember who has been kind to them and who hasn't wanted them around; crows also retain this type of memorization for up to ten years, although crows can tend to be more vengeful than pigeons who are very peaceful birds. Never piss off a crow -- they'll even get other crows to gang up on you!

When you make eye contact with and connect with a pigeon, and feed and be kind to it, that individual will register this in their mind and probably try to return to where they met you, even at the same time of day, to increase the chance of your feeding them again. They are canny, friendly and amazing birds! It's very sad when they're treated like mindless and meaningless vermin and treated inhumanely, because they actually do have the same level of intelligence and sensibility as cats and dogs; they're very sweet animals.

You've never owned a beagle or a basset hound, have you?

Cats, too! HUGE con-artists! Sneaky little darlings!

Are you referring to Alex? Dr. Pepperberg's African Grey that died about 6-8 years ago? If not, check out some of the stuff they taught that little guy. Amazing. I only know because I have a Grey myself. But really fascinating things he was able to do. They are so incredible.

My dogs pretty much walk all over me.

When I read your post, for a minute there I thought you meant WP's Alex!

I've heard of African Grey intelligence in general, though I don't know if I've seen the particular one you mention -- thanks for the name, I'll check that out!

They've done alphabet-learning studies on pigeons also: Pigeons taught the alphabet

It's all amazing stuff.

They're using pigeons for cancer cell analysis now, because they have a far better knack of spotting malignant cells than the average human. I think the hit rate is in the high 80's percentage wise.

Lol, no, not that Alex...

Yeah they write a book about it. Of course I own it and never read most of it, but I saw a bunch of videos about the little guy. He was able to, among other things, look at two flash cards and tell you what was different in the pictures. If it was a yellow circle and a red one, he'd say "color". He could also count, and I believe toward the end started to spell. He died unexpectedly at a relatively young age, I think he was in his early 30s.

In addition to intelligence, she was trying to prove that Greys can use language to communicate and express thoughts, they aren't just repeating words back that have little meaning to them. I'm sure many people's Grey's are sometimes, as they weren't trained as well. But they are such incredibly intelligent, observant and even funny animals. Mine literally, and you can believe this or not, says silly things and makes himself laugh. He knows when two words or ideas don't go together, and realizes that this is funny.

Greys are the best!

Wow that's amazing; particularly the recognition of meanings of words not just repeating things back. I've read a few things along these lines; the parrot family are particularly uncanny.

Have you read about crows, too? They have the problem solving abilities of a seven year old child (in some trials, even better!) and can think through the use of tools in maze tests set up for them. They also show similar intelligence levels to great apes, it's just that without the use of "hands" like ours, different methods of research have to show the different utility of a bird's capabilities. Birds are amazing.

One of the biggest problem with study is the fact that most birds are prey animals. Every other animal's intellect that is considered high up on the list is not. They are all at the top of near the top of the food chain. Except rats I guess. But this impacts a bird's comfort level in displaying it's intellect, or really showing you anything it doesn't have to. This is probably why it's not as well accepted as fact as it should be.

I've heard crows are extremely smart too. Ravens also. I know one of them (can't remember which) is said to be able to talk too. I think it was actually ravens.

It's funny I never gave birds a second look or thought. I actually was one of the city people that viewed pigeons as vermin (though if you have dozens of them crapping all over your building constantly you may think so too.) Wasn't until I reluctantly got a parrot that I started to realize how awesome birds really are. I love their little mannerisms. I used to think birdwatchers were stupid. But now I get it. Still wouldn't be into that myself, but I totally get it now. It's not the slightest bit stupid. Birds are awesome. And "bird people" are like a little wacky cult...

Reptiles fail the mirror test. I put my turtles in front of a mirror and they both reacted as if two turtles suddenly approached them and started poking the mirror with their noses.
They are still smart enough to know when I will feed them, but when I know when they've have enough, they still try anyway.
They also hide their heads, believing if they can't see you, you can't see them.

Hey, turtles have beaks. This makes them kinda cool in my book...

And turtles aren't amphibians? I thought they were. Hm.

I've been conned by a monkey a few times.

I am wondering what the implications for their psychology would be if a species was human level sentient but non-predatory....