He and his colleagues wrote that the common ability to learn rules about numbers is an example either of different groups — birds and primates, in this case — evolving these abilities separately, or of both pigeons and primates using an ability that was already present in their last common ancestor。
他和同事写道:鸽子和猴子都具有学习数字规则的能力,这表明不同的群组—这个案例中是鸟类和灵长类—要么是分别进化出这些功能,要么是遗传上一个共同祖先的能力。
That would really be something, because the common ancestor of pigeons and primates would have been alive around 300 million years ago, before dinosaurs and mammals. It may be that counting was already important, but Dr. Scarf said that if he had to guess, he would lean toward the idea that the numerical ability he tested evolved separately. “I can definitely see why both monkeys and pigeons could profit from this ability,” he said。
如果这项能力来自共同的祖先,那会意义非凡,因为鸽子和灵长类的共同祖先离现在已有三亿年了,那时恐龙和哺乳动物还没出现呢,很可能在当时数数已是很重要的能力了。但斯卡夫博士表示,如果让他进行猜测,他更倾向于这种能力是分别演化的这一观点。“我非常清楚为什么猴子和鸽子都能从这项能力中受益。”他说。
No testing has been done with numbers greater than nine, so whether a pigeon can count large numbers of bread crumbs or popcorn kernels is a question still open to investigation。
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