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Birds have more neurons than primates do

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It’s unclear how neurons relate to intelligence, exactly.

From ScienceDaily:

The macaw has a brain the size of an unshelled walnut, while the macaque monkey has a brain about the size of a lemon. Nevertheless, the macaw has more neurons in its forebrain — the portion of the brain associated with intelligent behavior — than the macaque.

That is one of the surprising results of the first study to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of more than two dozen species of birds ranging in size from the tiny zebra finch to the six-foot-tall emu, which found that they consistently have more neurons packed into their small brains than are stuffed into mammalian or even primate brains of the same mass.More. Paper. (public access) – Seweryn Olkowicz, Martin Kocourek, Radek K. Lučan, Michal Porteš, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, and Pavel Němec. Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain. PNAS, June 13, 2016 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1517131113

See also: What can we hope to learn about animal minds?

Are apes entering the Stone Age?

Furry, feathery, and finny animals speak their minds

Does intelligence depend on a specific type of brain?

Animal minds: In search of the minimal self

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Comments
Dionisio That's right egghead! :) you can't even be offended by that I have science on my side!Andre
June 15, 2016
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Dioniso That's right!Andre
June 15, 2016
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Andre,
we have egg genes
What's that about? Does this have anything to do with the posts @1650-1654 in this link: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mystery-at-the-heart-of-life/#comment-610237 ? :)Dionisio
June 15, 2016
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But we have been arguing here for weeks that monkey's and us share a common ancestor! I must protest! Are we now sharing a common ancestor with Macaws too? What does the sequence alignments say? 65% 72.5%? ThickPython what does Blast say? Dr Swamidass? Dr Torley? Awe I forgot we have egg genes! So we must then be old birds and monkey's!Andre
June 14, 2016
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