Gorillas disarm poachers snares in Africa

Originally posted by Iamschist
reply to post by AGWskeptic

 

How do you figure out if someone has learned or if they are trained? Chimps learned to use sticks to dig out termites or at least the first one did, by watching other's learned? I don't know. Isn't it Chimps who pound nuts open as well? I don't know enough about learning myself to figure that one out, but I'd love to hear how one could tell the difference.

If it's trained it's more of an automatic thing, there is an action that produces a response, and it's always the same response.

Based soley on the article we can't tell if it's mimic behavior or actual insight, but the more I think about it, it deffinitely isn't training.

reply to post by AGWskeptic


It would seem to be more. I would also think that some of the snares might differ from others, requiring thought to sort out the differences. KoKo was able to make sentences, yes? That meant she had to be able to think.

You may have seen this video, but even if the crow learned by watching humans, he still had to get the right object for it to work, and if they can think, I am sure Gorillas can. Also experiments were performed using meat tied to a string hanging from a limb, and the crows had to figure out how to get the meat, it did not take long before they hauled it up beak to foot overhand, so to speak.

Crowboarding: Russian roof-surfin' bird




Now that I am thinking about it, if you have ever tried to keep squirrels out of a bird feeder, you know animals think.

reply to post by Iamschist


Oh they think, they think a lot. But even the dumbest humans think. They could be thinking like my dog, food, belly rub, food, belly rub, outside, etc....

A good case that I think shows training vs insight is the painting elephants, I don't think it's spontaneous. I think elephants may be smart, but not that they can spontaneously create art. There are no examples of elephants drawing in the dirt with sticks in the wild. In this case man's involvement is obvious.


www.youtube.com...

So I disagree with the people on the video. I think they trained them to paint.

That's not to say they're dumb animals, just that painting doesn't factor into it.


So if the gorilla's are destroying traps after watching man do it for 50 years its one thing.

But if they've made this breakthrough on their own it's a much bigger deal.

reply to post by Iamschist


BTW, I love that crow video.

Ravens and crows are very smart birds.

We rented a beach house last year in Madera Beach for a month, it was 60 degrees for the entire month so we had to find other things to do besides feeeze to death on the beach.

We did the NASA tour and the birds there are amazing.

They can time the automatic doors perfectly and will fly into the snack bar, grab a bag of chips and fly out in the blink of an eye,

I was so amazed I bought a bag of chips to toss chips at them.

I was getting ready to toss a chip at a passing bird when one came from behind and snatched the whole bag right out of my other hand.

Those NASA birds are plenty smart.

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by AGWskeptic

 

Many of the great apes are very intelligent.
Intelligence on par with a small child.
And let me tell you little kids are pretty darn smart.

Koko is a gorilla that was taught american sign language.
They claim her IQ is between 70-95.
Normal humans are around 100.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Betting Koko could run this country's politics better than the baboons we have in congress.

Interesting story about an adult bull Elk saving a little marmot.

www.mnn.com...

Makes you wonder what he was thinking.

reply to post by AGWskeptic


Nothing new

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by ironsavior


Lol.

Yeah, not quite the same thing.

Brings up an interesting point though.

If they can learn sign language, can they be taught to use complex tools?

Pretty neat story.

Still trying to verify it, but the pics look kosher.


i86.photobucket.com...

Found this and I'm blown away.

www.youtube.com...

Baboons kidnapping wild dogs and raising them as pets.

Originally posted by grey580

Koko is a gorilla that was taught american sign language.
They claim her IQ is between 70-95.
Normal humans are around 100.

Hi grey and all !

I can tell you this:

Koko even "created" at least a **new** word, for a ring on a finger ! !

I remember she knew the word sign for "bracelet".
Then she wanted to "talk" to a person about the ring on his/her finger
of another human.

Wellllll ???? she signed the word; "finger bracelet" ! ! ! ! ! !

I did found that sooooooooooooo cute ! ! and TRUE ! ! ! !

Blue skies.