Angry Birds: Crows Never Forget Your Face
Crows remember the faces of threatening humans and often react by scolding and bringing in others to mob the perceived miscreant, according to a new study published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Since the mob members also then indirectly learn about the threatening person, the findings demonstrate how just a single crow's bad experience with a particular human can spread information about this individual throughout entire crow communities.
Given that crows have impressive memories, people who ruffle the feathers of these birds could experience years of retribution.
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Pigeons Recognize Human Faces
If you shoo a pigeon, that bird is likely to remember you and know to stay out of your way the next time you cross paths, according to a new study. Researchers found that wild, untrained pigeons can recognize individual people's faces and are not fooled by a change of clothes.
Previous research in this arena had only focused on the perception abilities of pigeons that were trained in a lab environment, but the new study was conducted on untrained feral pigeons. At a park in Paris, two researchers of similar build and skin color, but wearing different-colored lab coats, fed a group of pigeons.
One researcher ignored the pigeons after feeding them, allowing them to eat the food, while the other was hostile and chased them away. This was followed by a second session when neither researcher chased away the pigeons.
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