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Interspecific observational memory in a non-caching Parus species, the great tit Parus major

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Author

Summary, in English

Scatter-hoarding passerine birds have become a model system for research on spatial memory capacity. This research has focussed on two families, the Corvidae (crows, jays, nutcrackers, etc.) and the Paridae (titmice and chickadees). Corvids are considered to have highly developed cognitive skills that sometimes have been compared with the great apes. Even though pilfering, or stealing of caches made by others, is common among scatter-hoarding birds, the ability to memorize positions of caches made by others has only been demonstrated in some species of corvids. In parids, the ability to memorize positions of caches made by others has not been demonstrated. In a laboratory experiment, we allowed caged great tits to observe caching marsh tits and found that they remembered caching locations both 1 and 24 h after observation. This is the first time observational spatial learning of this type explicitly has been demonstrated in a parid. This ability is surprising since the great tit is not itself a food hoarder, meaning that it may not have the special memory adaptations in the brain that specialized food hoarders possess. Also, the memorization process in an observing pilferer may differ from the memorization that hoarders make of own caches. For example, the typical close inspection of the cache that hoarding parids do after caching will usually not be possible from a distance. Also, the visual perspective of the observing scrounger may be different from that of the hoarder, meaning that some understanding of allocentric space may be required.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

649-656

Publication/Series

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Volume

68

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Keywords

  • Great tit
  • Marsh tit
  • Scatter hoarding
  • Memory
  • Observational learning

Status

Published

Research group

  • Theoretical Population Ecology and Evolution Group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1432-0762