“Palaeognath birds consist of the flightless ratites (emu, rhea, ostrich, cassowary, and kiwi), along with the tinamous which are bad at flight,”stated Dr. Fay Clark from the University of Bristol and coworkers.

“Palaeognaths are the smaller sized and more ancestral of the 2 living bird clades and share more morphological functions with extinct birds and extinct (non-avian) dinosaurs.”

“Palaeognaths have the tiniest relative brain size and relative forebrain size of all birds, and this has actually been connected to a relative absence of evolutionary diversity and absence of adult financial investment.”

“Interestingly, ratites and tinamous have actually consistently lost their capability to fly and there is no clear relationship in between flightlessness and brain size.”

“Although the ostrich has the biggest outright brain of all living birds, its brain is much smaller sized than anticipated for body size (brain size 40.25 g, body size 120.05 kg).”

“Furthermore, particular locations of the bird brain connected to cognition such as the pallium are lowered in size, intricacy or neural activity in palaeognaths.”

“The only palaeognath types that defies this pattern is the kiwi; it has a reasonably big forebrain which might have progressed due to the strong sensory and affective pressures of nocturnality.”

Dr. Clark and co-authors developed a puzzle to evaluate the analytical capabilities of numerous zoo palaeognaths– 3 emus, 2 rheas, and 4 ostriches.

The puzzle needed the birds to line up holes in a plastic wheel held together by a nut and bolt to get a food benefit.

Each bird types was very first revealed a fixed variation of the puzzle with the food easily readily available, then provided an unsolved puzzle to finish within 30 minutes.

All 3 emus fixed the puzzle on the very first effort and might resolve it once again when the puzzle was reset; one rhea acquired the benefit without properly fixing the puzzle by dismantling it, loosening up the bolt from the nut to discover all 5 food chambers.

On subsequent efforts the rhea fixed the puzzle by spinning the wheel as planned.

None of the ostriches had the ability to resolve the job.

“A big body of research study reveals that crows and parrots work problem-solvers, and while researchers have actually just recently taken interest in other birds like gulls and birds of victim, all of these birds come from the very same phylogenetic group, Neognathae,” Dr. Clark stated.

“The issue? The more we study the very same types consistently, the more we produce an ‘echo chamber’ of understanding and produce a misconception that other types are less ‘smart’ however in truth they have not been studied to the exact same level.”

“We categorize palaeognath development as low level or simple– and it is definitely not as complex as the development we see in crows and parrots.”

“However, it is still an extremely crucial finding.”

“There were no reports of technical development in palaeognaths before our research study, and there was a dominating view that they are ‘dumb’ birds.”

“Our research study recommends that is not real which technical development might have developed far previously in birds than formerly believed.”

The research study was released in the journal Scientific Reports

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F.E. Clark et al2025. Palaeognath birds innovate to resolve an unique foraging issue. Sci Rep 15, 4512; doi: 10.1038/ s41598-025-88217-8