Chickens are smarter than you think. Australian researchers from Macquarie University have found that chickens actually have a sophisticated communication system and can "talk" to each other.
Roosters tend to vocalise about food in order to attract hens. However, if another rooster is nearby, they keep quiet and use gestures and body language to attract the hens' to the food; showing evidence of high-level decision making. Chickens have around 30 different vocalisations, which they use in order to communicate such things as warning calls, summoning their young and announcing the presence of food. Their vocalisations also differentiate between different types of predators.
Chickens are Related to Dinosaurs
Humble Chickens are also the closest living relative to the extinct Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, modern chickens were domesticated from Asian jungle fowl around 6000 years ago. By using DNA data from archaeological chicken bones combined with statistical modelling, scientists have found that important genetic changes occurred in the domestic chicken during the Middle Ages; notably, THSR gene variants that helped the chickens to cope with living in close quarters to one another and also, for faster egg laying and a reduced fear of humans.
The driving factor behind these changes was probably Christianity, as religious dictates of the times enforced fasting and excluded the eating of four-legged animals. Eating chickens and eggs were permitted during fasts and this drove up demand and the resulting genetic changes.
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Books To read
Fairy Tales, Fairly Told, Barbara Mervine. It is the second critical thinking/skeptic children’s book.
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