# Intelligence



## Phyllobates azureus (Aug 18, 2010)

Has anyone but me seen signs that dendrobatids seem to be fairly intelligent? 

My Tincs have learned to associate the preparations outside of their tank with the tasty meal that comes afterward; for instance when i pull the bag for calcium dusting out, they seem excited. And when i left for the week to visit family, they seemed happy to see me when i got back. Has anyone else noticed signs of PDF intelligence?


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## dravenxavier (Mar 12, 2008)

At the risk of sounding like an idiot, it sounds a bit more like conditioning. The same way fish get excited when you near the tank. Whenever I shut pumps off for feeding, the fish become excitable and come to the surface. I'm not completely sure of the definitions behind them, but I don't think it's actually classified as "learning".


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

dravenxavier said:


> At the risk of sounding like an idiot, it sounds a bit more like conditioning. The same way fish get excited when you near the tank. Whenever I shut pumps off for feeding, the fish become excitable and come to the surface. I'm not completely sure of the definitions behind them, but I don't think it's actually classified as "learning".


Learning isn't how conditioning is usually defined in the literature.. There is at least one long thread about this on here somewhere...


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## fleshfrombone (Jun 15, 2008)

Anurans are about as stupid as vertebrates get.


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## BlueRidge (Jun 12, 2010)

Learning is most definitely a sign of intelligence. Question is, how high that level of intelligence is. I used to always feed my frogs after spraying down the tanks so they got to the point that every time it "rained" it was time to come out of hiding and look for food. Conditioning maybe, but I look at it as they are pretty smart.

Main reason I say this is because I always had friends over that wanted to see the frogs and could never find them. To get them out I would spray the tank down and out they would pop. Of course it was never feeding time and they learned that it was just a trick and stopped coming out for their 'show'.

Pretty smart I think.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

How are you seperating this from inate instincts that encourage them to forage after rain occurances in the wild? See for example JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie as activity is positively correlated with rainfall. 

Ed


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

I think they are pre-programmed to seek out food and they associate you with food. I definitely would not rule out the possibility that they might have the capacity to differentiate between a provider of a source of food and an unrelated person. Even fish know the association between food and the stimulus that precedes it. With the betta fish I own, I shake the food pellets and then feed a piece of food. Over time the betta fish has learned to swim to the top of the water when it hears the jar shaking. It's just association, which is not a sign of high intelligence, but it is intelligence and related to learning in a way.
I think they may be smarter than other frogs, but that's just b/c I like them better than the layabouts like pacman frogs.


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## BlueRidge (Jun 12, 2010)

Ed said:


> How are you seperating this from inate instincts that encourage them to forage after rain occurances in the wild? See for example JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie as activity is positively correlated with rainfall.
> 
> Ed


I was jus thinking that they learned that I was tricking them to come out and they wouldn't fall for it anymore.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

JaredJ said:


> I was jus thinking that they learned that I was tricking them to come out and they wouldn't fall for it anymore.


Or you do something slightly different when feeding that is the actual cue and have anthropomorphized it to mean they figured it out.


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## macasus (Jun 7, 2011)

fleshfrombone said:


> anurans are about as stupid as vertebrates get.


lol hahahaha


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## NVfrogger (Apr 10, 2011)

I am thinking Pavlov's Law. The old ring the bell when you feed the dogs every time you feed them and salivate. After weeks of feeding and ringing the bell when when feeding the dogs, you ring the bell without feeding the dogs, they still salivate, associating the ringing of the bell to food. Kind of the same concept with the frogs in a round about way.


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## thekidgecko (Oct 30, 2006)

The lab I work in specializes in studying anuran behavioral ecology. A master's student here is currently working on learning in amphibians and just finished her trials. I have a feeling results will be promising from what I have seen....


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## jbherpin (Oct 16, 2009)

What measure is being used to determine intelligence? I am curious, not sarcastic at all. It sounds like a very interesting study to read.

JBear


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## varanoid (Jan 21, 2011)

I've noticed that my frogs become more active everytime I open and then closed their vivarium doors. Not really sure what that says about intelligence. Just an observation. They definately know though.


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## What'sAGoonToAGoblin? (Sep 4, 2010)

fleshfrombone said:


> Anurans are about as stupid as vertebrates get.


Humans are about as stupid as vertebrates get.


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## Phyllobates azureus (Aug 18, 2010)

fleshfrombone said:


> Anurans are about as stupid as vertebrates get.


Well if that's the case than i suppose humans are at about the level of an amoeba then


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## Phyllobates azureus (Aug 18, 2010)

Oh and since PDFs can learn, that suggests at least some degree of intellect. What is more, this is a quote from the book Frogs by Ellin Beltz: "A breathtaking study of frog and toad visual abilities looked at how often the tongue actually hit a televised image of a cricket...additionally, when the program ended, they looked behind the screen to see if the crickets were still lurking back there".


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## Boondoggle (Dec 9, 2007)

Phyllobates azureus said:


> Oh and since PDFs can learn, that suggests at least some degree of intellect. What is more, this is a quote from the book Frogs by Ellin Beltz: "A breathtaking study of frog and toad visual abilities looked at how often the tongue actually hit a televised image of a cricket...additionally, when the program ended, they looked behind the screen to see if the crickets were still lurking back there".


Yes, but remember you are talking about an animal that doesn't consider a bug that is not moving as a food item. Hunting/Exploring is one thing, but wouldn't "intelligence" inform a recognition of a prey item, still or not?

I think the argument is pretty nebulous. Groundhog had some really good comments in a previous thread about this, but it all really depends on how we perceive and define intelligence. It's hard enough to define what it means in a person, let alone a frog. As Ed points out, much of what is ascribed as intelligence is actually conditioning. Personally I don't see the distinction as clearly as he (and the literature) make it. I am firmly convinced that there are people I know that have learned very little outside of conditioning their entire lives.

Case in point: I raise many froglets to adulthood. When they are very small I pack 10 of them in a 10 gallon tank. As frogs get larger, I move them to larger, less populated tanks. Bottom line, I move frogs around occasionally. The other day I caught and moved 5 froglets to a new, previously uninhabited, densely planted tank. These frogs had lived their entire 6 months of existence in one place, and now were dropped into a new tank. Naturally they were completely FREAKED OUT and hid immediately.

They had been in the tank only about 5 minutes when I decided to feed. As soon as they heard me shake the flies over the tank they immediately rushed out...apparently snapped out of their distress. Now that is clearly conditioning, but... what would it indicate if they hadn't come out. Would that be intelligence because they overcame their conditioning with caution. Or are they intelligent enough to know that there is no threat. Or does that behavior indicate ANYTHING at all about intelligence? For that matter, is there any behavior that can indisputably indicate anything about intelligence vs. conditioning in something as alien as a amphibian? Nebulous, says I.

Conditoned? Yes. Intelligent? I don't know. Amazing either way? Definitely.


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## gootswa (Mar 16, 2011)

I agree with this post somewhat, I too have Tincs and they do relatively the same thing.

I dust their food in a cup and then let the flies crawl out while I hold the cup in the tank. Every time that I do so they come near the cup. There is no way they could see the flies prior to once they jump out of the cup and they always show up before any crawl out. 

I don't think that they are nearly as "intelligent" as my snapping turtle or as the Tiger Oscar and Green Sunfish that I used to have however. 

Maybe intelligence is not the correct term for these occurrences, maybe intuition is the correct one.

And Boondoggle, you made some very great points on this discussion.


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## SutorS (Feb 20, 2011)

> but remember you are talking about an animal that doesn't consider a bug that is not moving as a food item.


 What do you think about frogs that eat non-moving fruit, such as that _Xenohyla truncata_? I read something about this a few years ago, but do not remember what the findings concluded.


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## Boondoggle (Dec 9, 2007)

SutorS said:


> What do you think about frogs that eat non-moving fruit, such as that _Xenohyla truncata_? I read something about this a few years ago, but do not remember what the findings concluded.


I think that if they weren't a nearly threatened specie and Brazilian, I would want a pair.

I assume they are getting an olfactory cue (I'm aware that could be a wildly inaccurate assumption and wouldn't mind a correction if that's the case) from the fruit that they wouldn't get from an insect. I suspect they still wouldn't hit a non-moving insect. I've also read anecdotal accounts of Bufo Marinus eating dog food with no visual triggers. Is that a signal of intelligence? I lean towards no, but couldn't really find any data to support it one way or another.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

If one digs into the literature there are actually a number of differnet anurans that are reported to ingest plant matter routinely. As an example Rana hexadactyla during certain times of the year may have as much as 79% of the diet of the adult in the form of plant matter (sorry no free pdf but see Folivory and seasonal changes in diet in Rana hexadactyla (Anura: Ranidae) - Das - 2009 - Journal of Zoology - Wiley Online Library ). In the case of the R. hexadactyla and X. truncata the mechanism in which the frog selects food isn't well studied but the current consensus is that it is probably olfactory in nature. As a different example it has been shown that O. pumilio can actually find a specific species of bromeliad through olfaction as well as return to thier own territory. 

With the respect toward marine toads consuming pelleted foods, this is reported in a number of species and is throught to occur when the anuran routinely attempts to feed on insects attacted to the food and becomes conditioned that the pellets are a food source. I've used this to get extra nutrition into larger anurans by placing a shallow dish in the enclosure filled with soft salmon pellets and some mealworms to crawl around moving the pellets. I've tried trout chow but the toads would initially sample and ingest the pellets and then regurgitate them 15-30 minutes later for some reason. I don't see this occuring with the soft pellets. 

With respect to conditioning, it occurs among multiple taxa starting with planaria and ranging up to and including people... Anytime you practice something until you can preform the action without thinking about it, you have conditioned yourself. 

Ed


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## Phyllobates azureus (Aug 18, 2010)

Boondoggle said:


> Yes, but remember you are talking about an animal that doesn't consider a bug that is not moving as a food item.


Is it that they don't consider it food or that they can 't see it when it's not moving? Who can tell?


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## SutorS (Feb 20, 2011)

I agree. I don't think fruit-eating reflects intellegence... but I'd be interested to know more about the stimuli (or lack of) for wild anurans eating plant matter. Insect attraction to fruit could cause conditioning, but on a species wide basis? Who knows...I've gotta do more reading on this


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## What'sAGoonToAGoblin? (Sep 4, 2010)

Boondoggle said:


> Yes, but remember you are talking about an animal that doesn't consider a bug that is not moving as a food item. Hunting/Exploring is one thing, but wouldn't "intelligence" inform a recognition of a prey item, still or not?


Why would your frogs want to eat dead decaying flies instead of healhy active yummy juicy flies? Would you eat an old raunchy hamburger from a garbage dumpster or opt for a fresh hamburger? Would you recognize that the old raunchy hamburger is an expired food item and ignore it like your frogs ignore dead flies?

Maybe dead flies taste yucky, or smell nasty, or both? Maybe the reason frogs generally avoid dead prey items is as simple as that?

Dead (expired) food items can often be correlated with parasites and disease. Perhaps through natural selection or "Survival of the Smartest"  or similar scientific hypothesis, frogs have figured that out... Such a behavioural adaptation would be seemingly plausible.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Phyllobates azureus said:


> Is it that they don't consider it food or that they can 't see it when it's not moving? Who can tell?


There were a number of studies on this in the past.. they used live insects that were paralyzed so they couldn't move, dead insects and live unparalyzed insects. The anurans in the trials readily consumed live mobile insects, paralyzed insects that were moved artificially, and dead insects that were moved artificially. Insects that were paralyzed or dead were totally ignored and given no more attention than substrates. There were also studies done with tactile stimulation in a number of species of anurans. It is easily possible that the consumption of plant matter by anurans began as a response to tactile movements and subsequently evolved a response to those foods through olfaction. 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

SutorS said:


> I agree. I don't think fruit-eating reflects intellegence... but I'd be interested to know more about the stimuli (or lack of) for wild anurans eating plant matter. Insect attraction to fruit could cause conditioning, but on a species wide basis? Who knows...I've gotta do more reading on this


It is well established that anurans will turn and grab things that provide a tactile stimulus so that is a potential origin of folivery in anurans..particularly that frogs have a much better sense of olfaction that was considered previously. 

See for example tactile stimulated food capture SpringerLink - Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, Volume 142, Number 2 

and olfaction JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie 

Ed


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## Molch (Jul 15, 2011)

when I rise out of bed in the morning, the dogs jump up and wag their tails, the frog comes out of hiding and the newts start kissing the front pane of their aquarium. I don't know what that says about their intelligence, but I like to think it's because they loff their Mommy.

...or maybe they just know I'm a walking breakfast dispenser


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## Boondoggle (Dec 9, 2007)

What'sAGoonToAGoblin? said:


> Why would your frogs want to eat dead decaying flies instead of healhy active yummy juicy flies? Would you eat an old raunchy hamburger from a garbage dumpster or opt for a fresh hamburger? Would you recognize that the old raunchy hamburger is an expired food item and ignore it like your frogs ignore dead flies?
> 
> Maybe dead flies taste yucky, or smell nasty, or both? Maybe the reason frogs generally avoid dead prey items is as simple as that?
> 
> Dead (expired) food items can often be correlated with parasites and disease. Perhaps through natural selection or "Survival of the Smartest"  or similar scientific hypothesis, frogs have figured that out... Such a behavioural adaptation would be seemingly plausible.


I wasn't referring to dead insects, just still ones. More than once I've seen a frog track down a moving fly and strike at it only to miss. Insects will commonly hold still in such a situation, in which case the frog will stare in it's direction for a while waiting for movement. If the fly doesn't move, the frog doesn't seem to process that the little dark silhouette is the same fly. 

Of course that may have a lot more to do with anuran vision than intelligence, but I thought it was a good counterpoint to the frog-hunting-behind-the-computer-screen-image-of-an-insect scenario.

To be clear I wouldn't know what behavior to ascribe to intelligence vs. conditioning vs. instinct. My point was that I think the lines between each can be pretty blurry and the differences between any two less than wildly significant. For instance, it can probably be assumed that ,on the whole, animals with higher intelligence take to conditioning quicker. Doesn't that imply that in some ways conditioning is a factor of intelligence? Can you imagine an animal incapable of conditioning as still being intelligent?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Boondoggle said:


> To be clear I wouldn't know what behavior to ascribe to intelligence vs. conditioning vs. instinct. My point was that I think the lines between each can be pretty blurry and the differences between any two less than wildly significant. For instance, it can probably be assumed that ,on the whole, animals with higher intelligence take to conditioning quicker. Doesn't that imply that in some ways conditioning is a factor of intelligence? Can you imagine an animal incapable of conditioning as still being intelligent?


Conditioning has a lot more to do with behavioral flexibility than it does with intelligence. The less behavioral flexibility the fewer behaviors that can be conditioned. Lay people tend to interpret behavioral flexibility as intelligence but this isn't always the case...


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## Boondoggle (Dec 9, 2007)

Ed said:


> Conditioning has a lot more to do with behavioral flexibility than it does with intelligence. The less behavioral flexibility the fewer behaviors that can be conditioned. Lay people tend to interpret behavioral flexibility as intelligence but this isn't always the case...


That's actually really fascinating stuff to me. I think I have always considered behavioral flexibility and intelligence 2 parts of the same whole, but now you have me thinking.

I have 2 dogs. Dog #1 learns tricks VERY quickly. As a puppy I taught him sit, lay down, stay, play dead and roll over, all over the course of a weekend, without treats, and he still knows them. Dog #2 is very difficult to teach tricks to, very hard to house-train, but I've seen her bring dog #1 a chew toy to distract him from a treat. She watches TV and barks at anything on 4 legs. Dog #1 cant even recognize another dog on the television. 

I wonder if I am seeing examples of intelligence vs. behavioral flexibility in my own home.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Boondoggle said:


> That's actually really fascinating stuff to me. I think I have always considered behavioral flexibility and intelligence 2 parts of the same whole, but now you have me thinking.
> 
> I have 2 dogs. Dog #1 learns tricks VERY quickly. As a puppy I taught him sit, lay down, stay, play dead and roll over, all over the course of a weekend, without treats, and he still knows them. Dog #2 is very difficult to teach tricks to, very hard to house-train, but I've seen her bring dog #1 a chew toy to distract him from a treat. She watches TV and barks at anything on 4 legs. Dog #1 cant even recognize another dog on the television.
> 
> I wonder if I am seeing examples of intelligence vs. behavioral flexibility in my own home.


 
It is possible.. but there are some cofactors that you have to be able to rule out.. what if dog number 2 just didn't respond to the motivations you provided for the behaviors? 

I've worked with a number of dogs through the years (zookeepers tend to obsess over behavioral modification.. particularly as so much of thier time is looking to prevent sterotypy) and I've noticed significant differences in motivation both within and between breeds. I've had dogs for whom food motivations did not work as a reinforcer.. so you have to figure out what the motivator is for that dog. 
On a side note before our older Shiba passed away when she wanted something the younger dog had, she would go to the front door and alarm bark like someone knocked at the door. When the younger dog ran to the door to bark as well she would hustle back and steal the item. 
As a minimum for our dogs, I tend to train move (have to get out of the way), go on (have to leave room but can sit in the doorway), git (have to leave my sight), lay down, sit, give (have to give you what is in thier mouth), drop (have to spit out what is in thier mouth but doesn't necessarily have to give it to you) and so forth. 

Ed


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## Boondoggle (Dec 9, 2007)

Ed said:


> It is possible.. but there are some cofactors that you have to be able to rule out.. what if dog number 2 just didn't respond to the motivations you provided for the behaviors?


That's true, that example doesn't really taken into account motivators, but the reason the term "behavioral flexibility" jumped out at me is that dog #1 really learns tricks without much motivation at all. I taught him "roll-over" by using a verbal and hand cue and then rolling his body over for him, No treats, minimal praise. After about 8-10 times he got the idea it just really locks in. I love my dogs, but otherwise, this is a dumb dog...obedient, but dumb. Dog #2 is the same breed and unrelated, but "smart" in such different ways. I always used to say that one of these dogs was a genius and one was a moron and I hadn't figured out which was which.



Ed said:


> On a side note before our older Shiba passed away when she wanted something the younger dog had, she would go to the front door and alarm bark like someone knocked at the door. When the younger dog ran to the door to bark as well she would hustle back and steal the item.


That's a good example of the behavior that I interpret as intelligence. I really get a kick out of seeing that kind of thing. Admittedly, that is NOT the kind of thing your going to see in an anuran (I felt like I ought to bring it back around).


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Boondoggle said:


> That's true, that example doesn't really taken into account motivators, but the reason the term "behavioral flexibility" jumped out at me is that dog #1 really learns tricks without much motivation at all. I taught him "roll-over" by using a verbal and hand cue and then rolling his body over for him, No treats, minimal praise. After about 8-10 times he got the idea it just really locks in. I love my dogs, but otherwise, this is a dumb dog...obedient, but dumb. Dog #2 is the same breed and unrelated, but "smart" in such different ways. I always used to say that one of these dogs was a genius and one was a moron and I hadn't figured out which was which.


In cases like yours, you may have two dogs of close to equal intelligence, just one isn't motivated by the same things to exert itself when compared to the other dog... and since it isn't as willing to behave how you want it on little incentive it looks more intelligent. 


One of the reasons I prefer shibas and similar breeds to some other breeds (and I have had Rotties and others in the past) is because they don't have the need to be clingy all the time.. thier main goal in life is to somehow convince the big pink monkeys to do what they want.. 



Boondoggle said:


> That's a good example of the behavior that I interpret as intelligence. I really get a kick out of seeing that kind of thing. Admittedly, that is NOT the kind of thing your going to see in an anuran (I felt like I ought to bring it back around).


It is something that is equated with intelligence as some thought had to go through it, and shibas tend to surprise you about it.. Both of the shibas were trained to not get on the couch or chair in the living room but were allowed on the bed or futon (even when we had the futon in the living room) and they never tried to get on the off limit pieces of furniture. 

Yes, it is very unlikely that it will ever be seen in anurans.. 

Ed


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