Researchers from the University of of Inha, in South Korea, have found that birds in Antarctica remember people, and recognize who they are.
What the researchers found was that the more a researcher became familiar with a bird, the more the bird attacked. No matter what the researcher wore, the bird recognized the researcher every time.
The study is particularly interesting and important because it studies birds which live in one of the most remote places in the world. We already know that birds which are familiar with humans, city birds for example, recognize humans.
The researcher also is evidence of animal intelligence, specifically intelligence of birds in this instance. Which isn't particularly surprising.
This comes after another researcher study on birds, which birds are known to to communicate, quite sophisticatedly.
These studies are providing evidence that it is not just animals such as Chimps or Orcas which have intelligence, but that other species of animals have intelligence too. In this instance, birds.
One of the researchers said about the Brown Skuas study that, "It is amazing that brown skuas, which evolved and lived in human-free habitats, recognized individual humans just after 3 or 4 visits. It seems that they have very high levels of cognitive abilities."
It seems obvious that animals do have intelligence, that they are emotionally rich, and that they do have high levels of cognitive abilities, however, research in coming years, like this one, will support what is obvious.
This study was published in Science Daily.