Guest guest Posted October 24, 2002 Report Share Posted October 24, 2002 heck..we've done worse... Californian sea lions dazzle with brains UK: October 24, 2002 LONDON - California is usually associated with beauty rather than brains, but marine biologists have discovered it may have produced the cleverest creature in the animal kingdom. A Californian sea lion called Rio impressed American researchers by remembering a complicated trick for 10 years without practising it once - a feat they said showed sea lions probably have the best memory of all non-human creatures. Collen Kastak and Ronald Schusterman, marine biologists from the University of California, Santa Cruz, taught Rio to recognise matching numbers and letters by showing her sets of cards and rewarding her with fish when she chose ones with the same symbols. Many other mammals, particularly primates like monkeys and chimpanzees are good at learning tricks, but have trouble remembering them. " Learning concepts such as 'sameness' - when one letter or number matches another, for example - is thought to require sophisticated brain processing, " New Scientist magazine said yesterday. " So scientists expect animals to have trouble retaining the ability over long periods unless they are given repeated reminders of the rules, " it added. But ten years after she stopped training, and with no practice, Rio broke animal memory records by recognising pairs of letters and numbers without hesitation. Kastak said sea lions probably used their impressive memory to recognise different categories of prey that are only present at certain times of the year. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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