On the Intelligence of Reptiles

If men were as much men as lizards are lizards 

they'd be worth looking at. - D. H. Lawrence

I.

I suppose the cognitive ability of mammals and birds is now pretty much an established fact; that is to say, human beings have finally conceded that they are not the only creatures that possess minds and know how to think and use language, etc.

Unfortunately, however, there's still lingering prejudice when it comes to other classes of animal - reptiles, for example, are still not accorded the respect they deserve and are generally considered less intelligent even than certain species of fish ...!

I'm sure it's not only the scalies and herpetophiles out there who are offended by the injustice of this ...


II.

It's true, of course, that reptile brains are (relative to their body mass) significantly smaller than our own. But, be that as it may, reptiles are far from mindless - and certainly not as stupid as some people like to believe. It's worth recalling that dinosaurs roamed the earth for around 175 million years - which is a lot longer than the 100,000 years modern humans have clocked up (or are ever likely to clock up).

Larger lizards and crocodiles regularly exhibit complex behaviour, including cooperation; Komodo dragons are known to engage in play; turtles are also fun and sociable and some species are better even than white rats in learning to navigate their way round mazes. D. H. Lawrence, who famously immortalised a number of tortoises in his poetry, would be delighted to know that they are capable of learning via operant conditioning and that they are able to retain learned behaviours thanks to excellent long-term memories.   

We know these things because after spending years putting mammals, birds, and fish through their paces, researchers are finally giving reptiles the opportunity to show us what they can do via tests specifically designed for them.

Now that scientists have got better at designing reptile-friendly experiments, they've been pretty astonished by the results: reptiles, it seems, are not just good-looking, they're pretty savvy after all - and certainly more than living machines driven by instinct alone; they possess what is known as behavioral flexibility (i.e., the ability to alter behaviour as external circumstances change).

Although the field of reptile cognition is still in its infancy, it's already clear that intelligence is more widely distributed across the animal kingdom than previously realised - and so human exceptionalism takes another poke in the eye!

Notes 

The lines from D. H. Lawrence are from the short verse 'Lizard', in The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 455. Click here to read online. 

For a related post to this one on the intelligence of fish, click here.

Because the Night

A red fox patrolling his London territory at night

Photo by Jamie Hall

It's believed that in order to avoid being devoured by dinosaurs, many ancient mammals became nocturnal. And it seems that in order to avoid equally unfortunate contact with humans, many modern creatures are again instinctively retreating into the night.

Having no more space in which to run and hide, there's little else they can do other than effect a temporal shift and seek the cover of darkness, thereby minimising contact with man. However, I fear this rather desperate measure will only further marginalise them and is a strategy that fails to guarantee their survival. For unlike man, dinosaurs didn't use electricity or dream of a 24/7 lifestyle.

Thus, despite the remaining pockets of darkness and the stillness of the moon, one can't help but be aware like Oliver Mellors of the incessant noise of man even in the middle of the night, including the diabolical sound of traffic. And aware also of the bright rows of lights everywhere, twinkling with a sort of brilliant malevolence:

"He went down again into the darkness and seclusion of the wood. But he knew that the seclusion of the wood was illusory. The industrial noises broke the solitude, the sharp lights, though unseen, mocked it. A man could no longer be private and withdrawn."

And nor, alas, can any other creature in a world of mechanized evil "ready to destroy whatever did not conform" and ensure that all vulnerable things "perish under the rolling and running of iron".

Notes

Kaitlyn M. Gaynor et al, 'The influence of human disturbance on wildlife nocturnality', Science, Vol. 360, Issue 6394 (15 June 2018), pp. 1232-35.

According to the above paper, mammals across the globe are becoming increasingly nocturnal in order to avoid contact with humans - even if, in some cases, this increases their vulnerability to night hunters. This retreat into the darkness is also a retreat into the past; for previous work has found that many mammals originally abandoned a nocturnal existence for a daytime lifestyle roughly 65.8 million years ago (i.e., 200,000 years after the extinction of the dinosaurs).       

The researchers compiled data from 76 separate studies of 62 species from around the world, including elephants, tigers, and coyotes. No mammal, it seems, apart from domesticated pets, wants anything to do with man; the mad animal, the laughing animal, the crying animal, the unhappy animal.

D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), Ch. 10.