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Terrifying Research: Pigeons Never Forget A Face
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 5, 2011
Modified Jul 5, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 5, 2011
Modified Jul 5, 2011
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Pigeons—flying rats, carriers of disease, sometimes beautiful birds, regular masstransit riders, occasional fashion icons and long-time urban dwellers—aren't as dumb as they look, according to new research. Turns out that pigeons aren't just good at returning home, they never forget a face (dun dun DUN).
The news comes out of Glasgow where a group of French researchers presented a paper on Sunday at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference which found that feral pigeons in a Paris park were able to differentiate between two humans of the same age, gender and skin color on multiple occasions.
To come to this momentous—and terrifying, if you aren't Mike Tyson—discovery the researchers sent a man and a woman of similar stature into a Paris park with bird food. Once there "One individual simply ignored the pigeons, allowing them to feed while the other was hostile, and chased them away. This was followed by a second session when neither chased away the pigeons." The results, which were replicated with a pair of female feeders, were consistent. The pigeons learned quickly to discriminate between the good feeders and bad feeders (staying away from the bad ones) and showed no sign of forgetting which was which. Despite attempts by the research team to confuse them by swapping the researchers clothes, the pigeons consistently homed in on the good feeder.
The researchers suspect that "the birds have developed abilities to discriminate between humans in particular. This specialised ability may have come about over the long period of association with humans, from early domestication to many years of living in cities." And what does this mean? Maybe the next time you push through a flock of pigeons you might want to say excuse me. They'll remember.
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Garth Johnston
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