I spent a summer tending a flock of turkeys, once.
Every morning, let them out, watch over them all day and then count them before I put them back at night.
One night, came up one short.
Hunted it for hours, and found it, and for reasons only it knew, it decided to ‘nest’ in a nice, warm pool of tar.
OMG, never again.
Stupidest things on earth.
Couldn’t agree more. They are one of the few idiot animals that will stand out in a hail storm and get clobbered. Male turkeys will attack anything that looks remotely like a threat, including their own reflections in windows and car doors.
But they join a few animals that aren’t real bright. Panda are not going to far with their future in brains. With practically no protein or vitamins in the bamboo they eat, it is hardly brain food and it certainly doesn’t provide pandas with enough energy to get up and go. That’s part of the reason they only mate once a year in the wild –they just don’t have the energy to do it more often than that.
Australia is being over run with the Cane Toad. This little stud muffin will hump anything, and I mean, anything. They’re well known for sexually attacking dead animals, even trying for hours to breed a female that has been run over by a car, but they don’t limit themselves to just dead frogs, they’ll even assault dead salamanders, snakes, lizards, mice, anything.
Another is the Kakapo. This flightless parrot has defaulted to an absolutely horrible method of defense. If you scare it, it will either hold completely still, or climb up a tree and then jump out –but since it can’t fly, it merely lands in a pathetic heap on the ground. If you don’t scare it, it very well may come out to say hi and, if it is a male, it may try to have sex with you.
So turkeys may be stupid, but they are up the brain chain from a few anyway.
rwood