• Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Any bird who lives primarily in the water is dumb as shit. They have unlimited protection above and around them, so they have zero adaptive pressure to put anything into their intelligence. Land birds have a lot to worry about so their brains are approaching human levels of intellect.

    • PrincessZelda@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If the land birds get any smarter they’re going to have to start worrying about a whole lot more. Like taxes, or rent.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A land bird flew into my window so hard I was worried it died this morning. This happens once a month to my knowledge and I don’t spend long in my bedroom outside sleeping. Land birds aren’t smart outside of a few select species lol

    • BigNote@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Not true at all. There’s tons of adaptive pressure. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t see the thousands of pelagic and shorebird species that we do. But even if what you say about the threat from predation were true --its not-- there would still be adaptive pressure from differential reproduction rates and access to nutrients.

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Which is why you see ducks with all their spec points into r—ing and not getting r–ed. Yes they’re adapting but not to the environment.

  • FUCKRedditMods@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m sure there’s some seagull out there with a 1000-yard stare who went through the most fucked up shit of his life in the 90’s and still remembers it like it was yesterday. He hangs out down by the bars and drinks discarded alcohol out of the trash, trying to forget, and then flies around drunk bumping into things.

    The other seagulls look at him and shake their heads with pity “he used to be such a good gull… so full of promise.”

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Too soon, too soon, too soon.

      He stole food from Madonna too soon.

      Too young, too young, too soon too soon.

  • Cornes@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This reminds me of a talk I had with my dad, an equine veterinarian for 40 years. I’d seen that video of a horse eating a chick online and someone in the comments explained that horses are naturally opportunistic eaters and that’s why it took the chance to munch it down. I confidently told him this later on and he said, ‘nah, they’re just stupid’.

  • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t know that I’d trust an ornathologist to know how the brain chemistry works. But I do trust that they’re dumb. Lacking memory isn’t predictive of being dumb, but there’s probably some correlation. Maybe seagulls have perfect memory but just want to flip human observers the bird.

    • IMongoose@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Ornithologists do actual science, they aren’t just bird watchers. An ornithologist is pretty much the only one I would trust about this because they are the ones studying the birds.

    • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Maybe seagulls have perfect memory but just want to flip human observers the bird.

      My spirit animal

    • leggettc18@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      For real, there are at least some parrots that are likely to outlive their owners. Like if you get a pet parrot you do it considering you will likely pass it on to someone else in your fucking will.

      • Marxism-Fennekinism@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The sadder part of this is that many “pet” parrots live much shorter than their natural life in the wild because their owners don’t know how to care for them. They’re also extremely intelligent, some researchers argue that macaws can be considered sapient for example.

        Even more widespread problem with koi and goldfish. They can live well into their 80s and can grow up to many pounds over that time, yet most people have their goldfish die after two weeks and just assume that’s their natural lifespan because they’re irresponsible owners. Hint: that glass bowl is not cutting it, there isn’t a single species of fish that can be healthy in a tank without an active circulation pump and filter. Also fun fact: the Western misconception that goldfish can be kept in bowls comes from the fact that in China and Japan where they originate, owners would sometimes put them in clay bowls to show them off (which were about a meter in diameter BTW, not the soccer ball sized bowls you see nowadays), they were kept in those bowls very rarely, they were traditionally raised in large ponds.

              • Marxism-Fennekinism@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                So are all baby animals. Which is the only life stage of their species you’ve probably ever seen because most pet ones never live even close to their maximum lifespan.

                Also, jellyfish are even more fragile looking yet some can theoretically live forever. Looking fragile to humans does not mean they aren’t well adapted to survive for a long time in their natural habitat.

                • someacnt@sopuli.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  I… I just cannot accept this reality. How did I, how do people, how… how could this misfortune happen???

            • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              They are related but not that closely. They share the same taxonomic family, but not the same genus. It’s like saying a fallow deer and a moose are very closely related. Or a panda and a grizzly.

      • Squids@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        My great grandad got a couple of cockatoos when he was in his 20s right after ww2 and they still managed to outlive him. Only by a few weeks mind you - poor things starved themselves to death out of grief after he died. He told us not to worry about rehoming them because he knew they wouldn’t be able to take the loss of loosing him at such an age.

        He only had them because he took up conservation work and they’re just, native to Australia. They lived out in a big aviary he’d built with trees and bushes and even a water feature along with other birds he ended up aquiring. I adored those birds, but I genuinely can’t understand how or why you’d keep such a big beautiful intelligent bird as a pet in a cage on the other side of the world and it always weirds me out when I see these birds I grew up watching roam free eating all our damn lemons in someone’s house as a pet. It’s like if you an American saw someone keeping a racoon as a pet.

    • Gamey@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Or crows, they reach roughly the same age and ravens can turn fucking 80 in captivity, not sure how long they live in the wild tho!

  • csm10495@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    They wait for cruise ships to leave to grab fish trying to swim away. They’re probably smarter than most people.

  • TopShelfVanilla@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    They have enough thought process to play. Watch them fly. They play in the thermals. Do all manner of aerobatics. They know how to steal from humans. That’s not “dumb”.

  • TinyPizza@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    “The greatest trick the devil ever played was making man believe he doesn’t exist”

    Those seagulls remember… and they’ll have their revenge for that hot dog bun you scared them off in 04’. tick tok