{"id":139068,"date":"2019-12-03T14:07:01","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T11:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sciencetech\/article-7750571\/Giant-tortoises-perform-tasks-remember-training-decade-later.html?ns_mchannel=rss&amp;ito=1490&amp;ns_campaign=1490"},"modified":"2019-12-03T14:07:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T11:07:01","slug":"giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/so\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant tortoises can perform tasks and will remember their training almost a decade later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Giant tortoises from the Pacific and Indian islands may be a lot cleverer than humans have previously given them credit, according to the results of a new study.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Despite a slow and lumbering reputation in the animal kingdom, tortoises from the Galapagos and Seychelle islands demonstrate remarkable memory skills over time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Observations of the creatures show they are not only capable of being taught new tasks, but can remember their training nearly a decade later.<\/p>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<div class=\"mol-img\">\n<div class=\"image-wrap\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-d77e87fb75ab3329\" src=\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later-1.jpg\" height=\"459\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Tortoises were taught to bite a coloured stick to receive food, and recall the skill after nearly nine years\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\"><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-d77e87fb75ab3329\" src=\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later-1.jpg\" height=\"459\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Tortoises were taught to bite a coloured stick to receive food, and recall the skill after nearly nine years\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Tortoises were taught to bite a coloured stick to receive food, and recall the skill after nearly nine years<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Around nine years ago, scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan taught a group of captive tortoises in Vienna and Zurich zoos to bite the end of a particular coloured stick in return for food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">At the time, the tortoises were trained to bite the correct stick to receive the food when they were presented with two different coloured options.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">After nearly a decade, the team returned to the enclosure that housed three of the tortoises and found that they were able to recall their skill from a decade prior.<\/p>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<div class=\"mol-img\">\n<div class=\"image-wrap\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-5d1fbdbf59f85d19\" src=\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later-2.jpg\" height=\"422\" width=\"634\" alt=\"The animals were shown to perform tasks better when surrounded by their fellow creates than when taught individually\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\"><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-5d1fbdbf59f85d19\" src=\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later-2.jpg\" height=\"422\" width=\"634\" alt=\"The animals were shown to perform tasks better when surrounded by their fellow creates than when taught individually\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">The animals were shown to perform tasks better when surrounded by their fellow creates than when taught individually<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;Until recently, reptiles were often regarded as reflex machines, incapable of more complex behaviours, reduced to a footnote in the evolution of learning and intelligence,&#8217; the researchers wrote in their study, which was published in the journal <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"class\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10071-019-01326-6\">Animal Cognition<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The creatures were also found to learn faster when trained in a group rather than individually, even though each tortoise was assigned its own colour for the learning task.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Galapagos tortoises can live for over 100 years, making it one of the longest-living vertebrates.<\/p>\n<div class=\"artSplitter mol-img-group\">\n<div class=\"mol-img\">\n<div class=\"image-wrap\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-8f3335cd0f2f5d2c\" src=\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later-3.jpg\" height=\"457\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Tortoises were kept alive on board the second voyage of the HMS Beagle in 1835, as an easy to store source of food\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\"><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-8f3335cd0f2f5d2c\" src=\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later-3.jpg\" height=\"457\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Tortoises were kept alive on board the second voyage of the HMS Beagle in 1835, as an easy to store source of food\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Tortoises were kept alive on board the second voyage of the HMS Beagle in 1835, as an easy to store source of food<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Early visitors to the Galapagos, including Charles Darwin in the early 19th century, used tortoises as a source of food during the arduous journey across the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The HMS Beagle took more than 30 live tortoises as an easy to store and long-lasting source of food for the voyage to Polynesia.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Darwin wrote in his diary: &#8216;Young Tortoises make capital soup &#8211; otherwise the meat is but, to my taste, indifferent food.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Conversely, William Dampier, a 17th-century British pirate, said they were &#8216;extraordinary large and fat, and so sweet, that no pullet eats more pleasantly&#8217;.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">This new study represent a first step towards a wider appreciation of the cognitive abilities of the giant tortoise and less for their meat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Giant tortoises from the Pacific and Indian islands may be a lot cleverer than humans have previously given them credit, according to the results of a new study. Despite a slow and lumbering reputation in the animal kingdom, tortoises from the Galapagos and Seychelle islands demonstrate remarkable memory skills over time. Observations of the creatures [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10221280388112155_325455220908133":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Giant tortoises can perform tasks and will remember their training almost a decade later - Wardoon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/so\/giant-tortoises-can-perform-tasks-and-will-remember-their-training-almost-a-decade-later\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Giant tortoises can perform tasks and will remember their training almost a decade later - Wardoon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Giant tortoises from the Pacific and Indian islands may be a lot cleverer than humans have previously given them credit, according to the results of a new study. 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