Chickens Have Friendships And Reputations | Tourist Photos May Help Map Penguin Colonies

Nov 7, 2024

Sy Montgomery, an author and naturalist, reveals the surprising intelligence and social dynamics of chickens, showcasing their ability to recognize faces and form friendships. Meanwhile, Heather Lynch, an ecology professor, discusses how tourist photos can help map and monitor penguin colonies in Antarctica, providing crucial ecological data. Together, they challenge common stereotypes and highlight the importance of understanding animal behavior and environmental changes.

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ANECDOTE

Chickens' Navigation

Sy Montgomery was surprised by her chickens' ability to navigate home after being released on her property.
Despite having 8 acres to explore, the chickens instinctively knew where their barn was located.

INSIGHT

Chicken Intelligence

Chickens possess impressive spatial reasoning and memory, remembering past predator attacks and hiding spots.
They also recognize over 100 faces, including human ones, by focusing on facial features like combs and beaks.

ANECDOTE

Chicken Social Dynamics

Sy Montgomery's chickens demonstrated social awareness by expanding their territory.
They only did this after observing increased interaction and closeness between Montgomery's family and their new neighbors.

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Author and naturalist Sy Montgomery discusses chicken intelligence and her experience raising a flock in New Hampshire. And, snapshots from over the years could provide researchers with valuable data about how penguin colonies have shifted.

Chickens Have Friendships, Memories, And Reputations

Chickens don’t exactly have a reputation of being the sharpest creatures in the animal kingdom. Yet, talk to anyone who raises chickens and they’ll tell you that they are far more intelligent and social than we often give them credit for. For example, chickens can recognize the faces of 100 other chickens and find their way home just days after birth.

Guest host Rachel Feltman talks with Sy Montgomery, author of the new book, What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World’s Most Familiar Bird, about her own flock and what she’s learned about chicken intelligence.

Tourist Photos From Antarctica May Help Map Penguin Colonies

If you’re lucky enough to visit Antarctica, you’ll probably aim to snag a classic photo—a colony of penguins, set against the chilly, barren landscape. But now, in addition to being a cherished memory, those pictures could turn out to be a valuable source of ecological data.

Writing in the journal PLOS One, researchers describe a computer vision technique that uses elevation data combined with landscape features in photographs to allow the images to be positioned in a 3D rendering of the Antarctic landscape. And that allows scientists to map the precise boundaries of penguin colonies over time, even without knowing who held the camera or where the photographer was standing.

Dr. Heather Lynch, the Institute for Advanced Computational Science Endowed Professor of Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University, joins guest host Rachel Feltman to discuss the technique, and the value in being able to extract scientific data from pictures stored in photo albums and museum archives.

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