A BIRD'S IQ

Are you smarter than a bird?

“Human intelligence is unique in the history of the Earth,” writes Lefebvre, a professor of biology and an expert in animal behavior. “But if, as we’ve seen, its precursors in birds and other primates—innovation, planning, toolmaking, and episodic memory—have evolved independently on multiple occasions, it means that the faculty of intelligence may be less scarce than we believe.” In chapters roughly organized by species’ brain size, Lefebvre uses research and observations to demonstrate avian intelligence, from innovation and problem-solving with tools to social learning and cultural transmission. A chapter on city birds focuses on how urban environments shape the behaviors and innovations of species like rock pigeons and barn swallows. In a later chapter on corvids, Lefebvre demonstrates how crows and ravens are the complete picture of animal intelligence: “brain size, culture, neurotransmitters, colonization, urbanization, resistance to extinction.” Lefebvre has a talent for distilling complicated research into digestible prose, even when discussing complex topics, such as how the level of NMDA 2B receptor expression relates to a species’ rate of innovation, making this book suitable for both casual birders and scientists alike. At times, Lefebvre spends too much time on digressions, such as an explanation of how he and his team scan journals for keywords or a “quick personal aside” about a biologist’s name change. Additionally, not all of the author’s claims are equally convincing—Lefebvre’s claims about learning through cultural transmission rest on thousands of anecdotes rather than rigorous studies (Lefebvre, to his credit, acknowledges this criticism). Still, this wealth of information about bird intelligence is hard to find in other books.

A complete and informative book on bird intelligence.