Wild pigeons never forget a face

Feral, untrained pigeons, which can fly quickly and unerringly through uncharted areas, recognise individuals and are not fooled by a change of clothes, according to latest research. Although pigeons have shown remarkable feats of perception when given training in the lab, this is the first research showing similar abilities in untrained feral pigeons. These pigeons are also called city doves or street pigeons, derived from domestic ones that have returned to the wild. In a Paris park, pigeons were fed by two researchers, of similar physique and skin colour, wearing different coloured lab coats. One individual simply ignored the pigeons, allowing them to feed while the other was hostile, and chased them away. This was followed by a second session when neither chased away the pigeons. “It is very likely that the pigeons recognised the researchers by their faces, since the individuals were both female and of a similar age, build and skin colour,” says study co-author Dalila Bovet from the University of Paris. “Interestingly, the pigeons, without training, spontaneously used the most relevant characteristics of the individuals (facial traits), instead of the lab coats that covered 90 percent of the body,” added Bovet, according to a Paris statement. The experiment, which was repeated several times, showed that pigeons were able to recognise the individuals and continued to avoid the researchers who had chased them away even when they no longer did so. Swapping lab coats during the experiments did not confuse the pigeons and they continued to shun the researcher who had been initially hostile. The fact that the pigeons appeared to know that clothing colour was not a good way of telling humans apart suggests that the birds have developed abilities to differentiate among humans in particular. These findings were presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Glasgow Sunday.