Giraffes with 'small brains' are smarter than we think, study finds

Giraffes at Barcelona Zoo were able to choose their favorite snacks based on stored data. Photo: Alvaro L. Caicoya/University of Barcelona

Giraffes are smarter than we think and can use statistics to get their favorite snacks, study shows.

Four giraffes at Barcelona Zoo have been tested by scientists to find out if they are capable of doing statistical calculations in their head to give themselves a better chance of getting their favorite food.

Two men and two women were shown two transparent containers side by side, each filled with vegetable sticks.

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But the boxes contained a different mixture of carrot and zucchini sticks, with carrots being the preferred option and zucchini being disliked. The ratio of carrots to zucchini was constantly changing, with the testers taking out a vegetable stick in one hand and hiding it from the inquisitive zoo animals.

Small brain

Giraffes, which are known to have small brains for mammals, despite the fact that they are the tallest animals in the world, were asked to choose the hand from which they wanted to see the contents.

In 17 out of 20 experiments, the giraffes were able to choose the container from which their favorite carrot sticks were more likely to originate. According to the researchers, this was based on the relative frequency of food in the containers, rather than other information such as their sense of smell.

The researchers said the findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest that despite their relatively small brains, giraffes may have more sophisticated statistical abilities than previously thought. of the brain are not a necessary prerequisite for the development of complex statistical skills,” said study lead author Alvaro L. Caicoya, a PhD student at the University of Barcelona.

“Statistical ability can provide decisive advantages for human fitness in making inferences under uncertainty, and not surprisingly, these abilities are widespread among animal taxa.

“For example, the savanna environment, in which the life of giraffes is characterized by widely spaced trees. Thus, being able to determine from a distance which trees have the best ratio of leaves to flowers that giraffes want to consume is likely to provide an evolutionary advantage.

Energy saving

“This ability allows giraffes to save energy by avoiding unnecessary travel to less desirable food sources, and instead focus your efforts on reaching trees that provide the most beneficial nutrients.”

The ability to make predictions based on statistics is considered a highly developed reasoning skill and has only been seen in animals with large brains. such as primates and kea, species of large parrots found in New Zealand.

Mr Kaikoya said: “Our results show that giraffes have the ability to make decisions based on the proportion of food in each container to maximize their consumption of preferred food.