ANIMALS GIVE SCIENTISTS PAUSE FOR THOUGHT WITH SHOW OF ABILITIES
An elephant that can count and tool-making crows open up new avenues for research, writes Robert Matthews
An elephant that can count or a dog that can foretell a disaster would once have been the topic of fiction or circus attraction, but now they are the focus of scientific interest and their abilities appear to be genuine.
For millennia, the lowly status of animals ensured that any suggestion they had human-like abilities was given short shrift. Yet attitudes towards them have changed and so has the willingness of scientists to take claims of gifted animals seriously.
Recently, an elephant named Authai has been making headlines because of her apparent ability to count. Shown images of collections of objects, she was able to work out which showed the most objects about two thirds of the time.
Japanese researchers behind the study said the time Authai needed to reach her answer depended on the number of objects, suggesting she really was counting them — a trait once thought unique to humans.
Meanwhile, a species of crow continues to impress scientists with its ingenuity.
In 2002, a New Caledonian crow named Betty became world-famous because she appeared to bend garden wire into hooked tools to get food out of a trap.
The same species of crow has since been seen making hooks to catch fish, and then keeping their inventions safe for re-use.
Now scientists have witnessed the crows going to the next level, creating tools with several parts.
Faced with food that was out of reach, they picked up sticks supplied by researchers, only to find they were not long enough. So the crows looked around and noticed straws into which their sticks could fit, giving them extra reach.
Carefully sliding the sticks into the straws, the crows then returned to their task and managed to flick the food out of the container.
Amazed, the researchers decided to make the task even harder, giving them ever shorter sticks to work with. One of the eight crows in the experiment made a four-part tool consisting of two sticks and two straws.
The researchers, from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany and the University of Oxford, admit they do not know why the crows are so ingenious. They suspect they mentally visualise the tools being put together, although this has yet to be proven.
It suggests that we humans still have much to learn about the abilities of other animals. Nowhere is this more apparent than in research into their ability to detect ill-health and even foretell disasters.
Malaria has become the latest human disease that dogs are thought to be able to diagnose. Their noses, crammed with incredibly sensitive scent-detecting cells, can detect molecules in concentrations up to 100 million times weaker than humans can.
A team of researchers led by Prof Steven Lindsay of Durham University has trained dogs to detect the molecules in the socks of children infected by malaria.
The dogs proved capable of correctly detecting the disease in about 70 per cent of cases, even in those with no outward signs of the disease.
Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, research into the method, which is quick and non-invasive, is considered important in the effort to eradicate the disease.
A recent review in the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour found impressive evidence of the ability of trained dogs to also detect lung, ovarian and prostate cancer by sniffing body fluid samples.
But their superpowers do not end there. Animals are also thought to be able to detect disasters. Reports of animals fleeing the scene of an impending earthquake date back to Ancient Greece and anecdotes persist to this day.
After the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of 2004, reports emerged of elephants and other animals moving to higher ground before disaster struck.
Such anecdotes may have a basis in ability. In 1997, scientists at the University of California reported that elephants can detect the stomping of others over distances of 50 kilometres or more.
Such sensitivity may allow them to detect so-called foreshocks, which often presage major earthquakes.
This year, a scientific review of past reports confirmed that such a link does appear to exist, but the evidence remains patchy.
Given the potential benefits, researchers are starting to follow up such anecdotes.
Another team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology is tracking thousands of electronically tagged birds to see if they behave differently before earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.
Despite such developments, many scientists remain sceptical about the superpowers of animals. But simply dismissing the idea out of hand is increasingly looking bird-brained.
A species of crow has been observed making hooks to catch fish and then keeping their inventions safe for re-use