Posted on 03/26/2008 8:29:06 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
What a Rodent Can Do With a Rake in Its Paw
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Degus are highly social, intelligent rodents native to the highlands of Chile. They adorn the openings of their burrows with piles of sticks and stones, have bubbly personalities and like to play games.
But in a laboratory setting, degus can do much more than play hide-and-seek, according to a study in the online journal Plos One (www.plosone.org). They can learn to use tools.
Specifically, degus have been trained to reach through a fence, grab hold of a tiny rake and pull their favorite food, half a peeled sunflower seed, close enough to reach with their mouths. After two months of practice, researchers say, the degus can move the rake as smoothly and efficiently as croupiers in any Las Vegas casino.
This is first time rodents have been trained to wield tools, said Atshushi Iriki, a neuroscientist, who led the experiments at the Laboratory for Symbolic Cognitive Development at the Riken Institute in Tokyo. But other species may soon join them.
While it has long been thought that tool use is a hallmark of higher intelligence, Dr. Iriki said, the brain structures that underlie such abilities may lie dormant in many animals with good hand-and-eye or paw-and-eye coordination. Training them to use tools in captivity provides insights into the plasticity of their brains, he said, and may shed light on how early humans evolved tool use in the first place.
“There’s an interesting push-pull to this demonstration of the use of an artificial rake by a rodent,” said Richard Morris, a neuroscientist and expert on animal behavior at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping!
Well, we don’t call them the Demorats for nothing!
Actually, what they tell them is to punch the SECOND hole. That’s what accounts for all the Buchanan votes.
Won’t be long as those degus will be building degus communities, with degus condos, degus high-rises, degus theme parks and degus universities.
Jersey City
Oh Wah Degus Siam.
“The Secret of NIM”?
That’s pretty neat. The video of the degu using the rake is worth the trip to the ny times science section online. maybe someone has put it on youtube if you really dont wanna go to the slimes site.
And have heated political controversies about degus-caused global warming...
De gustibus non est disputandem
Don’t say that: the NEA will be all over us demanding more school funding for degus.
No way! This photographic evidence of a rat wielding a gavel predates the Degus rake experiment...
>> ...a few pioneer deguses who escaped the lab after successfully learning the trick. They are said to be politically active even in the lab.:-)
Take heart my FRiend... they use tools to work and feed themselves, and they have “bubbly” (i.e. cheerful) personalities. So they’re probably conservatives!
I’ve never been able to get my kids to pick up a rake, maybe I could get a team of these rodents into my back yard.
I wonder if ferrets could be trained to rake the leaves?
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