The writer is a science commentator
本文作者是科学评论员
The New Caledonian crow can lay claim to being one of the world’s cleverest birds. It can put two sticks together to make a rod to “fish” for food. The corvid’s dazzling propensity for strategic planning and problem-solving mirrors the cognitive skills of some great apes.
新喀里多尼亚乌鸦可以说是世界上最聪明的鸟类之一。它能够将两根棍子组合成一根钓竿，用来“钓”食物。这种鸦科鸟类惊人的战略规划和问题解决习性，堪比某些大型猿类的认知技能。
Observations like these have stoked a decades-old debate about whether birds and mammals enjoy a shared cognitive legacy from a common ancestor, which lived more than 300mn years ago — or whether their skillsets evolved separately. Now, research points to the latter, with birds and mammals developing similar cognitive abilities independently, via different evolutionary paths.
像这样的观察结果激发了一个绵延数十年的辩论：鸟类和哺乳动物是否共享大约生活在3亿多年前的共同祖先的认知遗产，还是说它们的认知技能是各自发展出来的？如今，研究结果偏向后者，即鸟类和哺乳动物在不同的进化路径上各自发展出了相似的认知能力。