Thank you @fahmidajahan69!

Here's my little thread on animal intelligence (ft. animals being animals) as part of the #GlobalScienceShow

Do follow along with the whole show and check out @thealmostpsych after you're done with this thread :)

#ScienceFromHome @MinoritySTEM

When I was a child, my mother used to tell me an Aesop bedtime story called The Crow and The Pitcher. It's the story of a thirsty crow who used pebbles to raise the water level in a jug so it could reach the water and drink it.

It's an old, old tale.

(Image: N.C.K & Sons)

Maybe even back then, we had an idea that crows and other corvids are pretty nifty birds.

But wait. How do we decide that? How do we study the intelligence and behaviour of other animals when we're barely beginning to understand it in our own species?

The science of studying animal behaviour is called ethology. Researchers have been studying different animals to learn more about animal community formation, parenting, foraging, communicating, mating, interaction with other species, and so much more.

It's a dizzying little dance of various fields like animal biology and evolution and psychology and environmental studies and linguistics and philosophy and-- there's a lot happening here.

But that also means ethology borrows and lends its methods to these other fields.

Its main method is observing animals in nature. Like Jane-Goodall-spending-most-of-her-adult-life-in-jungles level. If you've ever had a pet, or multiple pets, you know what it takes to pick up on the nuances and differences.

Here's the thing though - our observations about animal behaviour ought to be separate from what we know about human behaviour. As Frans de Waal, professional ape-studying-scientist writes in his often-cited essay:

"Without experience with primates, one could imagine that a grinning rhesus monkey must be delighted, or that a chimpanzee running toward another with loud grunts must be in an aggressive mood. But primatologists know from many hours of observation...

...that rhesus monkeys bare their teeth when intimidated, and that chimpanzees often grunt when they meet and embrace. In other words, a grinning rhesus monkey signals submission, and a chimpanzee’s grunting often serves as a greeting." https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/are-we-in-anthropodenial

Yet another method of studying animals is observing them in less natural means. Ways that wouldn't normally occur in nature. These include experiments. Like that common pop psych trivia that 'intelligent' animals can recognize themselves in the mirror.

Here again, we as humans want to be mindful of how much it is that we don't know and don't understand about other species.

Anindya Sinha, a macaque expert based in my city in India, talks about how these experiments have also shed light on the way these animals communicate, and the differences among ages, species, tones, and more.

Which leads to another way in which we can learn about animals - evolutionary studies. For example, humans and chimps share about 99% of their DNA. If it leads to similarities in physical appearances, there's good reason to believe it leads to evolved behaviours similarities too

There are plenty of other ways in which this rapidly-growing field is shedding light on what we know about animals, and in turn, about ourselves. I'm leaving you all with a list of people that I've discovered (mainly from India) who I'll be following.

https://twitter.com/i/lists/1284033139308822528?s=20

(Which is to say, I'm no expert, I'm just trying to learn more. If there are any corrections or important points that I missed out, please feel free to step in. I'm still learning.)

Happy reading!