The new research suggests we have greatly underestimated the intelligence of land tortoises, who can not only be trained but also have amazing powers of long-term recall.
EUREKALERT: ‘Described as “living rocks”, giant land tortoises are lumbering beasts with a reputation for being sluggish in both speed and brainpower. But new research carried out by scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) suggests we have greatly underestimated the intelligence of these creatures, who can not only be trained but also have amazing powers of long-term recall…
In this latest research, Dr Tamar Gutnick and Dr Michael Kuba – who originally worked at Vienna Zoo and is now a staff scientist at OIST – trained Aldabra and Galapagos tortoises from Vienna Zoo and Zürich Zoo to perform three tasks of increasing difficulty. The researchers used a form of conditioning called positive reinforcement training, where they rewarded the tortoises for a correct action by treating them with their favorite food, such as carrot, red beet or dandelions…
When the researchers tested the tortoises three months later, the tortoises immediately performed the first two tasks. Although they were unable to recall their correct individual colors for the third task… The long-term memory of the tortoises was not the only surprise in store for the researchers, as they also discovered that tortoises trained in groups learned faster than tortoises trained separately.
“This was a very unexpected result,” said Gutnick. “Giant land tortoises are not known for being particularly social animals but the increase in learning speed was unmistakable.” The scientists speculate that giant land tortoises may gain important information in the wild, such as feeding and drinking locations, by watching other tortoises…
This result is the first documented evidence for social learning in Aldabra and Galapagos tortoises, highlighting how little scientists currently know about cognition in reptiles – a group often neglected by scientists due to a lack of availability’. SOURCE…
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