Pacific Gull (Larus pacificus)
Distribution: Coastal Australia
IUCN Status: Least Concern
{ Ecology } { Vocalizations } { eBird }
GULLS WILL DECIDE WHAT TO EAT BY WATCHING PEOPLE
Herring gulls (Larus argentatus) can perfectly thrive in coastal and urban landscapes, however, these birds will steal your food as soon as you are distracted. Urban gulls pay attention to human behaviour in food-related contexts, and will mimic what humans almost all the time, a new study shown.
In a simple test, researchers studied how herring gulls behave in front person eating snacks on Brighton beachfront, UK. They gave the gulls the choice between two differently coloured potato chips, and when the human were eating potatos chips from one color, seagulls approached the food, and chose the same colour that the experimenter was eating, the 95 per cent of the time.
Seagulls were able to use human cues for stimulus enhancement and foraging decisions. Given the relatively recent history of urbanization in herring gulls, this cross-species social information transfer could be a by-product of the cognitive flexibility inherent in species who steal food, called kleptoparasitic species. This success in urban environments is suggested to result from behavioural flexibility, which is likely to require specific cognitive adaptations. In food-stealing birds, success is said to reflect an ability to integrate and use information about both the environment and other individuals, and kleptoparasites generally have usually larger relative brain sizes than their hosts.
