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Rule Governance in an African White-necked Raven (Corvus albicollis)

Rule governance is critical to human society. However, could rule governance be found in non-human animals? A six year old, female, African white-necked raven (Covrus albicollis) named Shade correctly followed informal verbal commands to retrieve specified objects in the past. This ability was tested using two different methods. Both methods involved the researcher verbally asking the bird to retrieve one object out of two either from the same room or an adjacent room. While initial results were not significantly different than chance, review of trial recordings revealed that it is possible to predict when the bird will retrieve an incorrect object based solely on specific behaviors, termed inattentive or uninterested. Trials marked as inattentive by observers were significantly more likely to be incorrect than correct. This indicates that the bird was capable of retrieving the correct object, but that she also occasionally, intentionally retrieved the incorrect object.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/242401
Date January 2012
CreatorsCory, Emily Faun
ContributorsJacobs, William J., Schwartz, Gary E., Steklis, Horst D., Wenner, Christopher J., King, James E.
PublisherThe University of Arizona.
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, Electronic Thesis
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

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