Birds May Have Been Smarter Than Non-Avian Dinosaurs

The term ‘bird-brain’ is usually used to belittle one’s intelligence. Avian wildlife have long been considered some of the least intelligent animals on the planet. However, recent studies suggest the contrary to be true. A recently discovered fossil has helped scientists uncover some valuable information.

The mass extinction that wiped dinosaurs off the face of the earth, may not have been as devastating as we initially thought. The fossil, which is 70 million years old, has a nearly complete skull, which allowed scientists to compare it with living birds of today. The findings have been published on July 30th in the journal Science Advances.

“Living birds have brains more complex than any known animals except mammals,” said lead investigator Christopher Torres, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Ohio University and research associate at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences.

He added, “This new fossil finally lets us test the idea that those brains played a major role in their survival.”

Said fossil is a specimen of a bird named Ichthyornis. It lived in what is now Kansas during the late Cretaceous period and went extinct at the same time as non-avian dinosaurs. Researchers say that it had avian and non-avian dinosaur-like characteristics. This includes jaws full of teeth but tipped with a beak.

Christopher Torres / The University of Texas at Austin

They used CT-imaging of the Ichthyornis skull to create a 3D replica of its brain called endocast. The researchers then compared it with ones created for living birds and more distant dinosaurian relatives. What they found was rather fascinating: the brain of Ichthyornis had more in common with non-avian dinosaurs than living birds.

Cerebral hemispheres, which are responsible for higher cognitive functions such as speech, thought and emotion, are bigger in living birds than in Ichthyornis. Researchers believe the pattern suggests that these functions could be connected to surviving mass extinction.

“If a feature of the brain affected survivorship, we would expect it to be present in the survivors but absent in the casualties, like Ichthyornis,” said Torres. “That’s exactly what we see here.”

Until the current discovery, scientists haven’t been able to properly compare the skulls of early birds and closely related dinosaurs. It’s because bird skeletons are brittle and rarely remain intact in the fossil. However the Ichthyornis fossil may open the door to future discoveries that may shed more light on the mass extinction.

Photo Credit (bird) – Photo by Jan Meeus on Unsplash