Dinosaur intelligence?

[Anapsids]

Hi, everyone. This is my first post.
I have a question regarding dinosaurs' intelligence. People say that they are dumb, and their brain-bodysize ratio are very low.
But surely the predator know how to hunt, and the prey know how to defend themselves. How else to survive? And when the weather got too hot I bet they would know enough to seek shelter. Does this mean they behave just like modern games in africa? In sum I don't know exactly in what way those dinosaurs show their stupidity. Puzzling to me.

[tomhet]

It depends of what you mean by 'intelligence'. There's a big difference between instinct and the so-called human intelligence, for instance. And it's not surprising that animals know how to defend themselves and attack, they still do it today, but, as amazing as their actions sometimes are, I think that's just their biological mechanism.

[Anapsids]

Dinosaurs behaved purely on their instincts appear similar to what Mammals do today using their bigger brain. That just seem odd. Not talking about human, I was looking for something that say zebras can do but triceratops can't or something along the line.

[sbell]

Oct 10, 2008 16:41:32 GMT Anapsids said:

Dinosaurs behaved purely on their instincts appear similar to what Mammals do today using their bigger brain. That just seem odd. Not talking about human, I was looking for something that say zebras can do but triceratops can't or something along the line.

Well, zebras continue to survive,,,

The biggest issue is that we can only speculate about what, exactly, Triceratops (for example) could do. Could they socialize? Maybe. Plan ahead in a conflict, remember water and food sources, recognize individuals as threatening? Don't know. Most likely. Maybe instead of mammals,which are evolutionarily way off, it would be better to bring it back to, say, crocodiles and lepidosaur reptiles. At least some appear capable of dealing with groups, and can even be trained. Crocs and some snakes show parental care. Is that intelligence or just programmed behaviour?

Intellgence is a very tricky subject, and a subjective one. I can algebra the heck out of a cat, but I don't think I could stalk a bird and catch it in early flight--so would the cat think I am an idiot? Aanswer is yes, because every cat thinks every person is an idiot.

[deanm]

I'm just glad that cats don't have opposable thumbs, otherwise we would be in trouble...

[crazycrowman]

All organisms are as intelligent/capable/adaptable as they need to be to survive...if not....they don't

"Intellgence is a very tricky subject, and a subjective one."

Indeed, especially with the subjective. To us socially intelligent tool using hominids, a creature like a monitor lizard may come off as "dumb". (even though, they are capable adaptable predators, with, at least for a squamate, a rather advanced social system) They are generally silent, do not "cuddle" or socially groom one another, live in large ranges where they contact others generally only for the purposes of reproduction. To us, animals like dolphins and birds like parrots and corvids, just "seem smart". These animals all have social networking requirements, and that fosters the need for a more detailed set of identifying behaviors and calls, and this resembles our "language". In the case of animals like corvids, who are even tool users, (and have show to out-tool even the other great apes) they just seem "smart" if you work around them or get to know them.

For the most part, what animals we describe as "intelligent" are measured by the flexibility of the specific animals behavior, and its willingness to adapt this behavior accordingly to compensate for changes in its environment, and even use its environment as a tool (like we do). Birds on a whole are very "intelligent" (both "instinctual" and "social") animals, and being that they ARE dinosaurs, I expect that at least some of the later maniraptora would have been at least as capable as working together and planning ahead such as modern raptors like the Harris hawks do.

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1209_041209_crows_apes.html
About corvids.

I would say there is an incredible amount we have yet to learn about many modern animals folks commonly consider "dumb" and how they continue to surprise us, let alone those that are extinct. From experience, I can attest to both various turtle, lizard and crocodilian species and being amazingly trainable "small brained" animals.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition

If corvids ever figure out how to use our weapons....

[richard]

you are all wrong... it seems that you are n't updated.... Dinosaurs are just as intellingent as humans, I mean how could human adults could not realize that barney was a big thing and not just a toy? Besides barney taguh children, he must be pretty smart
Well I think that most dinosaurs were just as smart as modern crocodiles, I think you can't consider an animal intelligent just because of paternal care, because I think intelligence is the habilty to solve problems, and we will never know anything about that on dinosaurs; however some modern animals do solve problems, like cats, dogs, birds, dolphins and monkeys.

[sid]

I tend to agree with crazycrowman...For me it's logical that,if a being has a brain,well,he uses it therefore he's an "intelligent" creature ;D

So...Yeah,i believe that EVERY living being on this planet with a brain has the ability to think,to use his intelligence (or instinct,if you like to call it this way) for solving problems,surviving and such



Only,some animals have a more "complex" intelligence than others (but NOT because some are dumber...Such word doesn't exist in nature)...And that's not always a bad thing,am i right?

[sbell]

Oct 10, 2008 18:33:38 GMT deanm said:

I'm just glad that cats don't have opposable thumbs, otherwise we would be in trouble...

No we wouldn't--because the cats would be toobusy sleeping to cause any problems (at least with thumbs, the stupid things could just feed their own consarned selves...nope, not bitter, certainly don't have a pain-in-the-arse cat, nope).

[Anapsids]

I just did some little experiment with my pets. I keep 2 species of turtles, red eared sliders and star tortoise. Any red-eared keeper would know that these creatures don't understand that height can endanger them. They would willingly and unhesitatingly throw themselves off a buildings just to get forward (Didn't happen to my turtle). So I put 2 star tortoise on a chair, 1 at a time. None of them jumped off a chair. They just walked round and round along the outline of a chair. This to me clearly showed that they percieved depth and height, and understood that falling down can endanger them. But because these 2 species are both turtles, I think they are roughly equally intelligent. My conclusion was that terrapins which were aquatic in nature understood height the same way they did with depth when they were in water. They could swim up and down in water, so they thought they could fly in midair. Land tortoise on the other hand just percieve height the same way land animals do. Is this a streched out conclusion.

[crazycrowman]

"This to me clearly showed that they percieved depth and height, and understood that falling down can endanger them. But because these 2 species are both turtles, I think they are roughly equally intelligent."

Certain turtle species have been shown to be more "intelligent" then others. The emys species along with the tortoises, and the wood turtles in particular.

"Is this a streched out conclusion"

Yes, and no. With your experiment, it would be hard to compare the 2 animals equally, and without a control group, and extensive testing of many red eared sliders, and star tortoises, its just ancedotal. In short, when comparing these animals natural history, Tortoises live in dry land environments where being tipped or falling are real risks, and depth preception would be an important requirement, while RES and many other basking turtle species rarely venture to far from the water, and may not have the same skills.

Being in a high place for those animals without the water is a situation they may have a harder time dealing with, and at least in the case of those animals you placed on the chair. You saw that those specific animals did not adapt their behavior to prevent injury to themselves. That is all. There are many other factors that go into being able to draw useful conclusions from an experiment though. A wild slider may learn this behavior, and learn to avoid walking off edges, while your captive animals may simply have never been exposed to the situation to need to "get a few hard knocks" to figure it out. It could be that a certain number of sliders never figure it out, and it could be that no slider would ever figure it out. The same goes for the tortoises.

A simple visible situation your turtles likely provide you with that they can learn and adapt behavior accordingly is that (like nearly all turtles) they probably paddle pathetically against the sides of the terrarium and beg when you show up at their tank, expecting you to feed them. I know my sliders in the pond all do this when I open the gate and shake the feed bucket. This shows that those animals have identified you as a source of food, and expect you to provide it. This intensive food drive makes them fairly easy animals to train to follow simple procedures.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zgSamFV-Eg
(here you can see Sahara the Sulcata follow a laser pointer to get treats) This film is a good example of a reptile adapting its behavior to an "unnatural" stimulus in order to get food.

Research in animal cognition, and testing it is a very complex process, and proving anything significant even harder. "Baby steps" such as seeing if individual animals will pick up a behavior, or learn to express natural behaviors on cues, and learn to read us as we as keepers learn to read them IMHO is far more satisfying, both personally and scientifically and over the long run, probably more insightful and viable at bridging gaps and understanding them then any comparisons between species.