Giraffe Intelligence Research Findings

Now for our animal corner with Eran Efrat, and this time,

a new study on an amazing ability of giraffes. Good evening, Eran.

Good evening, Lior.

There's this stigma about giraffes that

claims they aren't very smart, because their brain is small relative to their body.

This stigma is incorrect,

and the new study you are presenting to us today clarifies just how much.

The stigma was shattered to pieces.- Yes.

Yes, so first of all,

a test conducted at the University of Barcelona,

it's called statistical inference.

Meaning, they really wanted to test whether the ability to analyze

probability belongs

only to creatures with a large brain relative to their body, humans, primates,

elephants we know, and also some birds, parrots and crows.

They actually did a pretty amazing test.

They took two jars, put carrots in them, which is the favorite food of

giraffes in zoos, of course, and in the second jar they put zucchinis.

They mixed them well, and the keeper just took from one of the jars, they didn't

know what he was taking, and simply let them choose.

You have to remember,

giraffes aren't good at smelling,

so they couldn't identify by smell, they had to use sight.

What they did was, they started

to deduce the probability of finding a carrot, meaning, from which jar should I

guess or take, or which hand to choose, so that the chance would be a carrot.

Of course they changed it, they did all kinds of different tests.- Games,

exercises, yes. Listen, I'm not sure I would

have been able to predict where it's best to choose from. I wouldn't have succeeded.

They are definitely much better than me.

They even put a partition there for them,

and at some point they even deduced the length of the arm and where it would reach,

whether it would reach the carrots at the bottom or not, and they simply

didn't take when they saw it was too short.

So yes, they have this ability.- Crazy.

They're not just tall, they're also smart.

What survival need of theirs in the wild does this serve,

this statistical thinking ability?

So of course, nature doesn't develop things for no reason.

Giraffes need to choose the foliage, basically the densest and best treetops,

meaning the least dry.

They are a prey animal,

they don't have much time to wander around the savanna now and check out all

kinds of trees,

so they need to home in on the right tree.

And that's exactly the need to reach the tree as quickly as possible,

to eat and, of course, return to hiding so they won't be hunted.

And that's exactly the need.

What else are these giraffes capable of doing that we didn't know?

For example, I heard they have very high social communication skills,

which is also quite interesting.

Right, so they also connect that, by the way.

Meaning they know which group to join for all kinds of reasons.

We need to expand on this.

They were always a bit of a research subject

that no one wanted to touch because of a small brain and a big body,

everyone just left them aside.

Stigma, stigma, that's how it is.- Right, right.

And they went for elephants and large animals.

And look, they are proving that, first of all, everything we thought was wrong,

And now we can start working with

them on other things and really do more experiments and see how much we don't know,

because we really don't know much.

What's called the collapse of the preconception. This also happens with giraffes.

Eran, thank you very much. Thank you, good night.