EGG SHAPE IN CORVIDS

Planning and inhibition in corvids

Executive functions (EF) denote the host of top-down mental processes that mediate self-regulation to achieve a goal. Among other things, EF support cognitive flexibility by allowing inhibition of automatic responses in favour of obtaining future goals. Corvids, the bird group that is comprised of ravens, crows and jays, are distinguished by their cognitive flexibility. This thesis investigates...

Microtubules and control of insect egg shape

This study evidence for tension transmission by microtubules and desmosomes in the follicular epithelium during anisometric growth of certain insect eggs. Most insect oocytes, and the follicles which surround them, grow anisometrically as they assume shapes which approximate to those of long prolate spheroids. Surface growth is most rapid in directions which parallel the polar axis of an oocyte...

Corvids create novel causal interventions after all.

Department of Cognitive Science, Lund University, Helgonavägen 3, Lund 22100, Sweden Department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Eberhard-Gwinner-Straße, Seewiesen 82319, Germany Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK Centre for Behavior and Evolution, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle Universit...

The social life of corvids

If colonies are sessile how do they proliferate to form new colonies? There is an optimum size for colonies and a threshold beyond which larger group size is not beneficial, due to diminishing per capita prey returns. Excessive group size leads to colony fragmentation by budding. Daughter colonies are derived from a single parental source through a small foundling group, often a single gravid f...

Spatial Memory in Seed-Caching Corvids