Clever Duck

Ducklings are first non-human to be able to distinguish abstract relationship, a recent study has claimed.

20:49 15 July 2016

A recent study suggests that ducklings are more intelligent than had previously realised.  It was found that they have the ability to understand the concept of “same” and “different’, something that is previously known in only highly intelligent animals. 

 

Ducklings, as what have been previously established, learn to follow their mother through a learning process called imprinting.

 

Scientists from the University of Oxford imprinted ducklings a pair of objects either the same as or different from each other, in shape or colour, which moved around in a circle. Three quarters of the duckling have shown the ability to identify relationships between objects and retain their understanding.

 

'To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of a non-human organism learning to discriminate between abstract relational concepts without any reinforcement training,' said Professor Alex Kacelnik, a zoologist from Oxford University.

 

'The other animals that have demonstrated this ability have all done so by being repeatedly rewarded for correct performance, while our ducklings did it spontaneously, thanks to their predisposition to imprint when very young,' he said.