Listener Questions: Can Pigeons Tell Time?

of amazing questions about animals. So this email is called bird clocks Questions. Hi, Katie, I wanted to ask about bird's ability to tell time. A couple of years ago, I had a job that had be on the same bench every day, and I began to put out peanuts every half hour so the pigeons would come and enact their complex dramatic in her personal lives in front of me for free entertainment. Wise choice highly suggest doing this.

After a series of events that I won't get into for fear of this email being too long, one of the pigeons was shunned from the friend group and started showing up to my bench a little before the half hour mark to try and get some peanuts before anyone else showed up. He was coming before any of the clock towers rang, which was the indication I was using

for the half hour mark. Is it more likely that there was some other half hourly indication of time this pigeon was using, or that this pigeon was simply better at telling time than I was. Thanks, Miriam, Hi, Miriam. So this is a great question. Can birds tell time? And if so, how where do they wear their little wristwatch? Do they even have risks? All right, first let's start with let's focus on pigeons, because that is the bird you're asking a out. So pigeons seem like relatively simple birds,

maybe not the smartest birds out there. Right. They like our garbage, they like handouts, and they like our cities. They don't have the sophisticated problem solving intelligent of crows or the social intelligence of parrots. So it might be surprising to find that pigeons are relatively complex in their ability to reason, particularly temporal and spatial reasoning. So there have been studies on pigeons, fortunately in regards to their ability to navigate time and space. So a University of

Iowa study called quote non cortical magnitude. Coding of space and time by pigeons looked into how pigeons processed spatial and temporal information. So in humans and in other mammals, time and space are mainly processed in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain sort of towards the back of your head. You know, if you've ever worn a bun, if you've ever done ballet or just worn a bun, it's kind of under that area. So the problem is pigeons don't have a parietal cortex, and that leads to

a question can they understand time and space? So pigeons were allowed to play a sort of pigeony computer game in this study, so they were shown short or long lines, like it just a line on a computer screen, and the length differed both in geometric length like a short line versus a long line, and the time that the line was shown on screen, so a line that was displayed on the screen for a longer period of time

versus a shorter period of time. So after the line was shown, the pigeons were presented with two buttons symbolizing short or long, so they were kind of trained. One of the buttons represented short, and one of the buttons represented long, and they were awarded when they got it right, and then they were given a novel set of questions

for the study. So essentially they had to press the right answer either short in length or short in time length for these lines, and they were rewarded with a little treeo if they got things right, So they were highly motivated pigeons. The researchers found a few things. First, that pigeons can indeed make a pretty good judgment about

geometric length and of time length. Secondly, like humans and primates, they get messed up when you say, have a long line shown on screen for a short amount of time, and then you ask them to give an answer about how long is this in geometric length and how long is this in temporal length. So mismatching like a long a physically long line short period of time, or short line for a long period of time kind of messes them up. But that's not because they're necessarily stupid. It

also messes up us up and other mammals up. So pigeons, like humans and primates and mammals, may process geometric space and time space similarly, maybe using similar structures in the brain. So this does show pigeons can judge duration, and they can also judge geometric length. But how does it know what time to go and say, seek out your peanut offerings cleverly ahead of the other pigeons with whom I guess this pigeon had a dramatic falling out with the

pigeon group. I'd love to be in on this pigeon group chat. But regardless, pigeons can seem to tell time throughout the day, and they likely ascertain time with both an internal clock and external visual cues from the positioning of the sun. So fortunately, there was an actual study done in two thousand and six investigating your specific pigeon problem. There's a study called representing the Richness of Avian spatial

cognition properties of lateralized homing Pigeon Hippocampus. It's a long study name, but they were looking at pigeon brains how

they cope with spatial temporal recognition. So the pigeons were familiarized with an outdoor arena or an indoor lab arena, and the indoor lab had an artificial sun, so the researchers would lay out seed only at certain times of day, and the birds were able to learn when and where the food was, so when experimenters messed with the bird's circadian rhythm, like by having their day night cycles messed up, the birds kept making spatial airs when it came to

finding the food, and when the researchers made a lesion in the bird's hippocampus, they were never they were no longer able to use the position of the sun to

find the food. So most likely what Miriam's pigeon is doing to get to these peanuts before the rest of the crowd is that they this pigeon is using its own internal circadian rhythm modulated by hormones, as well as external cues such as the position of the sun to find your peanuts and time and space to be at the correct exact location temporally and spatially so that it will receive a peanut. Because this is what pigeons are

capable of once you motivate them. I'd be really curious to hear if your pigeon runs a little earlier late, depending on the weather, say it's like really overcast all day, maybe it doesn't have the sun to guide it as much. I wonder if that would cause little mistakes. It still has that internal circadian rhythm, so it could probably still make a reasonable guess as to what time it is, but maybe it's precision would be off a little bit.

Curious to hear about that, but yeah, thank you so much, Miriam for your email for being a friend to this outcast, highly intelligent pigeon. Okay, so this email is called yard maintenance? Is a bug loving hippie? Hi? I live alone for

the first time in the middle of nowhere in the country. Repeatedly, me and my parents have butt heads on my lack of yard management, i e. Grass cutting, etc. From a biology standpoint, how do I balance having my yard be a wild place without my parents concern of me inviting in rats and such? Is it even that important? How do other animals maintain their spaces so I don't feel like an evil human for maintaining mine to other beings detriment? Is there a bear or an animal who's obsessed with

having a flat, green lawn? Am I too much of a hippie? Thanks so much, Love your pod. This is from Seth Hi Seth, So this is a great question. Humans who love nature and animals often have a bit of a conundrum we may love wildlife, but we don't want to be exploited by certain urban animals like rats, mice, ticks, mosquitoes, roaches, etc. Whose presence in our home can be gross, if not outright dangerous to our health. So first things first, you are not evil for maintaining your home in such a

way that is good for your health. So as much as I love animals, including things like rats and mice, having them in your home is not healthy. So I don't think you should feel guilty at all for trying to prevent that from happening. I'm very much in favor

of prioritizing your health and safety inside your home. It's much better to try to prevent mice and rats from getting in your home by say, making sure you don't have food left out, a lot of nooks and crannies for them to hide in, that your house is nice and sealed, not leaving garbage bins open and accessible outside. I'll mention other techniques to keep them out of your home. So prevention is the best. So how do you keep pests out while having a nice natural yard that's not

just kind of a golf course? Right? So I think it is possible, But let's get into it, because there's a lot of different things you can do. First of all, it kind of depends on your location, like what pests really present an issue in your location, right, Like what species of mice and rats live near where you live. It's always good to kind of be familiar with what diseases are present in your area, right because that kind

of changes can change your risk toalants. Right Like, if you live somewhere where lime disease is a big deal, having tall grass might be too risky. Whereas if you live somewhere where lime disease is not really an issue, and there's not a lot of ticks, you know, you might want to have long grass and that might be fine. Same thing with mice and rats. You can kind of look into your area. You know, hantavirus things like that

are very very rare. I wouldn't personally, like be too preoccupied with worrying about it, but it's always good to kind of know if that's something that happens in your area, and just be careful of having say like sheds or enclosed areas where mice and rats can get into where you would go in and then breathe, because that's how

those kinds of diseases transmit. But yeah, so in general, just if you get familiar, like find out like where you live, what are the pests that are the most likely to cause your problems, and also if there's any diseases that are occur or are common in your area to watch out for, because again, I think it is really important to take care of your health as much

as it is important to be friendly to wildlife. So once you know what you're dealing with, you're going to be better able to make risk assessments for what you're

willing to put up with. Essentially, I would say if you live in an area with a lot of pests like ticks especially, but also mice and rats, tall grass is going to be a risk factor for those things either getting on you like ticks or getting in your home because ticks love tall grass, mice and rats love to hide around in tall grass, So if you have a lot of tall grass, yeah, that might be a problem.

And I mean it's not even necessary. I feel like, I don't know where I've heard this notion, but I feel like there's an idea that like dead tall grass is bad because that's where all the ticks are, but actually ticks really like moist environments. If you have a really lush, tall wawnd, that actually might host a lot of ticks. So if you have pets, that might be

a huge problem. And of course for you too, it might be an issue walking around in that unless you have paths that you can walk in or wear high socks or long pants all the time. So rats, they are attracted to yards with a lot of hiding spots and food resources. So rats love things like wood piles.

So if you've got a great woodpile right next to your house, that might not be great if you live somewhere or there's a lot of rats and you can't be sure that your house is completely sealed after them, because they love being in the woodpile, and if that's like right up next to your house, that's a nice entry point for them. They also love unsecured structures, like if you've got that old, loose, open shed, rats are

gonna love to go in there. Bird Seed, Now, this is one that's kind of sad, right because if you like to have a bird feeder or something out in

your yard, that's also going to attract rats. So if rats are a problem, I would say you might actually want to get rid of that bird feeder, maybe repace it for a replace it with a bird fountain water fountain, because that is just as if not more important than a bird feeder for their health ause you're providing them with a nice fresh source of flowing water, and you will attract birds to your yard. They love bird baths,

they love bird feeders. So if rats are a problem for you, maybe switch your bird feeder with seeds for a bird bath or a bird fountain, or have a bird feeder that's really really secure. But that's gonna be tough because even if it's like really secure in terms of only birds can get at it, the birds are going to scatter seeds around, So that's a risk factor. It's kind of up to you again, what's more important

to you and what your risk tolerance is. One way to have your yard be a nice beacon for local wildlife while also not being too welcoming too pests is to have kind of like a semi maintained yard where you have native plants right and can look up plants

that are native to your area. So instead of having a lawn that gets really tall, you have a bunch of plants that grow in your area, and then you can kind of like groom them a bit, right, Like, the best way to groom these plants, like to discourage say rats from setting up shop while encouraging birds and insects and all sorts of other animals that love these plants is by making sure at the base of the plant that there's not allowed of like dense ground coverage

near the base, so like sort of pruning the base of the plant wild, maybe allowing the branches and everything to grow as wild as you want. It's a good way to have wild plants that animals like while not creating sort of a suitable home for say rats. And yeah, actually something that's kind of fun is if you live in an area with hawks and owls, raptors, predators, predatory birds, having trees even dead ones can be a nice perch

for them to look out for rodents. So like, if you have I mean this is going to depend on your preference, probably your neighbor's preference too, And also make sure you don't live in an area with a lot of fire risk. Right for having dead trees in your yard, I certainly think that you should always Again, like it's

great to be welcoming to wildlife. You got to know the risks of your areas of wildfires, is it ticks, things like that, and then make sure you kind of modify your yard to keep you safe while welcoming animals. That being said, you have like a sort of a dead tree in your yard and you don't really want to get rid of it, right like, you don't mind how it looks. That's a nice perch for a hawk ornel and that will also help you with your rodent problem.

And living trees are also great perches for raptors. So if you don't like the spooky dead tree asthetic haunted house, look, don't worry. You don't need to keep dead trees in your yard. You can have plenty of perches for hawks and owls. Anyways, there is I don't know how effective this is, but I'll throw it out there. Anyways, you could potentially go on the offense by having plants that rats actively dislike, like sage. I've read peppermint that could

offend them due to their strong smell. A note of caution about peppermint, Apparently it's very very good at taking over a garden or yard. So you gotta really like peppermint to plant it. But yeah, I'm not really sure, Like I think if you plant those they might I just avoid those plants specifically. I don't know that they would avoid your whole yard, though. I think a better strategy potentially would be to replace. Say, you know, if

you don't like mowing the lan right that's legit. I don't like mowing the lan I don't even have a lawn. I don't have a yard right now, so who am I to talk. But if you don't like mowing your lawn and you want some kind of ground cover, there's a lot of groundcovers you can get that are really low maintenance and also don't provide a lot of coverage for animals that you may not want like rats, mice, ticks, etc.

While still being welcoming to local wildlife. So again I would definitely advise probably the best thing is if you have access to it, if you can afford it, finding plants that are local to you, like native plants, and then planting those, and there might be native groundcovers for your area, but you can also just look into other groundcovers. So here are some examples of ground covers that are not so tall and thick that they would potentially welcome

rats in. There's clover, there's diamondia. There's creeping time, which may repel rats with its odor. Again, I don't know. I'm a little skeptical of the repellent plants when it comes to rats. I think rats are pretty stubborn when they want to get somewhere. There's, honestly, so a lot of choices that you can find something that works with

your aesthetic preferences, your yard maintenance preferences. Right, Like, if you kind of want to set it and forget it, you can probably find a creeping ground cover that is helpful for that. Just yeah, do a little bit of research into it, look into it. Some ground covers can be really aggressive, so it might actually require more maintenance than you would like. So yeah, but there are ground

covers other than grass that don't really require mowing. But we'll also keep your yard from becoming like a haven for ticks and rats. But I hope I've given you a range of options that might be helpful for you going forward. All right, So this email is called cats can't Taste Sweet, but dot dot dot very suspenseful. Hi, Katie, I know cats can't taste sweet, meaning they can't taste sweetness. But my terrible tabby Phantom makes me think he can. He is constantly trying to lick my beer when he

thinks I'm not looking. He will even lick coffee mugs if they are forgotten to be put back in the kitchen. One time I was eating white chocolate and Phantom was so persistent. I gave him a very tiny piece, thinking he wouldn't like it. He chowed down and then wanted more. He did not get any more. By the way, I've never known a cat to be so particular about what they want to eat eat. I know some cats like people food, but why is he drawn to all these

sweet things? Thank you for the pod and for answering all our questions. Melissa, So, I just did in a photo from the alleged sweet thief, and he looks really innocent to me. I don't know what to tell you. Melissa, looks innocent. Innocent before proven guilty, is what I say. But to answer your question, this is really interesting. First, let's address the baseline premise, right, can cats taste sweet things?

So most of the evidence indicates that cats can't taste sugar in the same way that we do right When we taste sugar in general, we go bananas. We love it. It tastes really good to us. The two thousand and six study cats Lack a sweet Taste receptor found that cats have an unexpressed tasks one R two gene, and that is one of the two known genes that controls sweet taste receptors. So the other gene tests one or three,

seems to function fine in cats. So it's not that they completely lack any genes that could potentially detect sweet taste. It's that one of the main ones does not seem to function. And also, there have been studies that show cats do not seem to have a preference for sugar at all, they don't seem to be attracted to it. So many have interpreted this study as evidence that cats categorically cannot taste sweet right, like, they just can't taste it in the same way we can't taste blue, or

you can't taste blue, you amateurs. So I think it might be more nuanced than cats just not being able to detect sweetness at all. I think it does show they definitely have a difference in gene expression when it comes to the ability to detect sweetness, which I think for it might make it a really weak flavor, right they might some cats may not be able to taste it at all, some you know, maybe just really weak

and they don't really notice it. The study also goes on to talk about how there are individual differences of gene expression for these genes and cats, so that leaves us with a few interesting possibilities. So one is that most cats cannot taste sugar, but some cats have a mutation that allow them to express that tas one or two gene or another related gene that actually allows them to taste the sweet better. Another option is that most cats have a weak ability to taste sugar, like it's

not very strong. Maybe they don't even notice it, so they're typically unresponsive to it. But there are some cats who, due to genetic variability, have a stronger response to sugar, maybe stronger taste in general, right like in humans we have supertasters who have more taste buds on their tongue. And then the other option is that it is simply not possible for any cat to taste sugar, regardless of gene expression. So all these things I think are plausible.

I lean more towards the more variable response, where some cats might be able to detect it really weakly, and maybe for some very particular cats with a particular gene mutation or a supertaster can actually taste it more strongly. That would be my guess. But all these things are possible. So yeah. The reason I lean towards maybe cats not being absolutely in no circumstance being able to taste sweetness is because the genes for sugar tasting is there, just

that one of them does normally doesn't function. So they have like the recipes right for being able to taste sugar, and one of them functions. Maybe that doesn't do any and one of them typically doesn't function, but maybe in some cats it actually is expressed more so, Yeah, it could be a situation similar to super tasters in humans. I'm actually something of a super taste or myself. Not to brag, it's actually not a brag. It sucks. So it's a pretty useless superpower. It doesn't mean I'm a

great somolier or food taste or whatever. Maybe some super tasters are. I lack the skill to go along with it. For me, it just means that a lot of things taste yucky. So I hate red velvet cake because it tastes really better to me. I believe it's because there is a red food dye in it that I can kind of taste a bitterness to that. Most people who don't have like the extra taste buds, they can't taste it. So what good does that do me? I just can't eat red velvet cake, so I have a higher density

of taste buds on my tongue. A lot of super tasters are very sensitive to sour and bitter, which is interesting because I actually like dark chocolate and I like things that are sour in the acidic sense, like lemons, things like that. But it is interesting because a lot of certain sour tastes like cream, cheese, yogurt, sour cream are repulsive to me. I cannot handle it. Ah, So yeah,

which again it could be a psychological response. Though I might have had a bad experience when I was a kid with like sour milk or something right, and that put me off sour tasting dairy products. So you know, we might have a situation where it's a combination of my weird genetic mutation having more taste buds and then my learned response to foods, And so this also can go for your cat. Right, So there's a possibility that

your cat may not be able to taste sweetness. Right, he could, or maybe he can't, But he's simply highly socially curious and engaged, and he can tell what you like. So maybe you like sweet things and he can see, Oh, man, Melissa really loves this white chocolate, and he's really socially aware and he gets a bad case of kitty fomo and he really wants what you enjoyed so thoroughly right, So maybe he saw you sip in that beer. Like, man, Melissa really loves that beer. It's got to be great.

He goes and tastes it, and whether or not he can enjoy the sweetness of it, he might be. Just the thrill of tasting a thing that you have tasted might be enough for him to have a positive association with it. So yeah, some cats are extremely interested in human food, whereas others are less interested. This could be due to differences taste or differences in their sociability, or

combination of both factors. So I unfortunately cannot recommend like a taste test for your cat of sugar, coffee beer, because those things aren't, you know, really good for cats. Obviously, a tiny lick of some residue it's not gonna hurt your cat, but probably shouldn't encourage it, so you might kind of have to live with the mystery of whether your cat really has a sweet tooth or if he just loves you so much he wants to eat what you're eating. I could be both. So thank you guys

so much for your questions. I always have a blast answering them. If you have a question you'd like me to answer on the show, you can write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Can be about evolutionary biology, can be about your pets, can be about that poor lonely pigeon who lost all his friends because gosh, you know, I don't. I'm not gonna spill the tea on this pigeon. I feel like his business

is his business. Well, guys, thank you so much for listening, and thanks to the Space Cossics for their super awesome song ex Aluminus. Creature features the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio, app Apple podcasts or hey, guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows. I'm not your mother, and I can't tell you what to do. I can tell you. Can you not cats? But can you have a little

bit of white chocolate as a treat? Yes? Yes, you can see you next Wednesday.