How Smart Are Pigeons? Everything We Know About Their Intelligence

In some environments, these birds become a nuisance, earning rude nicknames like “winged rats.” However, some people breed these types of birds to become champion racers. When they make it in the sports industry, they become highly prized. Although easily overlooked in regular life, these birds are fascinating, and researchers have taken note. But how smart are pigeons? Learn about their intelligence and discover some surprising facts about these highly sociable animals!

A Summary of the Pigeon’s Mental Abilities

They’re Smarter Than Three-Year-Olds

A study conducted in Japan by Professor Shigeru Watanabe of Keio University in Tokyo revealed that pigeons possess self-cognitive abilities. They were able to differentiate between past video footage of themselves and a live feed. Toddlers at age three struggle with identifying themselves when there’s barely a two-second delay in footage.

They Can Tell Paintings Apart

Pigeons have surprising visual abilities that allow them to detect the differences between two distinct artists: Picasso and Monet. They display the ability to categorize, which offers insight into how they view and navigate the world around them.

Cognitive Capabilities: Understanding the Pigeon’s Problem-Solving Skills and Learning Aptitude

They’re Messengers

The pigeons’ messenger duties began around the 5th century BC and continued through the 12th century AD. Starting in Persia and Syria, pigeons remained steadfast messengers. Even in Egypt centuries later, they served as the sole means of communication.

They Save Lives

Pigeons have long served as messengers, but they’ve also found their way into sports. Navy researchers, understanding that pigeons display incredible intelligence, gave them a different kind of task. Project Sea Hunt began with a mission to train pigeons to use their visual abilities to identify red and yellow life jackets in the water. Pigeons have an advantage over humans as they can see ultraviolet. This makes them extremely adept at identifying the life jackets (and the survivors in them). They also managed to accomplish these lifesaving tasks with significantly greater accuracy than their human counterparts.

Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom: Comparing Pigeons to Other Species

A string test is one in which researchers present an animal with a touchscreen that has two virtual strings. If the animal selects the correct string, it lassoes in a full bowl of food. The other string leads to an empty bowl. Pigeons successfully brought the full bowl closer, which resulted in a real food reward. Interestingly, cats cannot successfully complete the string test, which has researchers thinking that pigeons are more intelligent than your four-legged feline friends!

How Smart Are Pigeons? Past Discoveries and Studies on the Pigeon’s Intelligence

They Can Detect Cancer

They don’t exactly sniff it out, but when you present a pigeon with radiography images, they can identify the differences between benign and malignant breast tumors. Researchers revealed the remarkable visual abilities of pigeons in completing a task that takes humans years to master. Both radiologists and pathologists dedicate time to specialized training to achieve the skill level required to accurately detect cancer in tissue samples. However, pigeons required only a food incentive and minimal training to display accurate image memorization.

Their Memory Is Shockingly Impressive

In 1990, German researchers studied visual memory lateralization in pigeons. Their findings indicated that pigeons have an asymmetrical visual memory with heavy reliance on the left hemisphere. They trained the pigeons to identify and discriminate 100 varying visual patterns from over 600 comparable stimuli. Their ability to retain the information was notably more precise when they viewed the stimuli monocularly with their right eye, which corresponds with their left hemisphere.

4 Surprising Facts About Pigeons

1. They’re War Heroes

During wartime, pigeons were efficient when it came to delivering messages across enemy lines. World War I and II required pigeons on convoys so that they could advise others of sinking ships. They had to navigate through enemy fire at times and would make their way through poison gas with a single mission to deliver their message.

2. Their Bobbing Heads Are Due to Their Eye Placement

You’ve probably heard someone say, “They’ve got a bird brain,” and when you see a pigeon bobbing its head, you might wonder if there’s a single thought in there. There is. Pigeons are intentional. Their eyes are side-mounted, which means they don’t have the ability to perceive depth in the same way you do. That bobbing motion they do when walking helps them perceive depth so they can properly navigate the space around them.

3. They Mate for Life

Pigeons can successfully breed up to eight times within a single year if the conditions are just right. Male and female pigeons remain together for life, raising their young (known as “squabs”) together. They both feed them and care for them for their first two months of life before they fledge and depart from the nest.

4. The Racing Kind Are Worth Big Money

When pigeons are bred for racing, their value rises sky-high. Champion racers have a pretty price tag with some that sell for hundreds of thousands. However, the most expensive racing pigeon ever sold cost an unbelievable $1.9 million USD!

The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/Frank Cornelissen