Bird Brain

About this film

At a small zoo in the English countryside, a ten-year-old scarlet macaw named Rio performs tricks for an audience. During a test designed to measure problem-solving skills, Rio faces a challenge: a peanut dangling from a string. This experiment, part of a broader investigation into avian intelligence, reveals that birds can visualize problems and foresee the consequences of their actions. Scientists like Auguste von Bayern and Christina Riehl discuss how recent research shows that some bird species possess cognitive abilities and emotional depth comparable to those of young children.

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Animal

Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms belonging to the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Animals form a clade, meaning that they arose from a single common ancestor. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described, of which around 1.05 million are insects, over 85,000 are molluscs, and around 65,000 are vertebrates. It has been estimated there are as many as 7.77 million animal species on Earth. Animal body lengths range from 8.5 μm (0.00033 in) to 33.6 m (110 ft). They have complex ecologies and interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as zoology, and the study of animal behaviour is known as ethology.

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Evolution

Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as genetic drift and natural selection act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. The process of evolution has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation.

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Experiment

An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies.

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Amalie Auguste of Bavaria

Princess Amalie Auguste of Bavaria was a Bavarian princess by birth and Queen of Saxony by marriage to King John of Saxony.

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Greater ani

The greater ani is a bird in the cuckoo family. It is sometimes referred to as the black cuckoo. It is found through tropical South America south to northern Argentina.

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