January/February 2026

9 – Purebred PIGEON Does a bigger brain equal greater intelligence? It’s worth noting that crows and parrots, generally considered to be the most intelligent birds, are altricial species with lengthy periods of postnatal development and big brains. And decades of research provide strong evidence that the semi-altricial pigeon, with its relatively large brain, also is no slouch when it comes to smarts. REFERENCES Iwaniuk, A. N. and J. E. Nelson. 2003. Developmental differences are correlated with relative brain size in birds: a comparative analysis. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 81 (12): 1913-1928. Ligon, D. J. and D. B. Burt. 2004. Evolutionary origins. In: Koenig, W. D. and J. L. Dickinson, editors. Cooperative Breeding in Birds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 5-34. Ricklefs, R. E. and J. M. Starck. 1998. The evolution of the developmental mode in birds. In: Starck, J. M. and R. E. Ricklefs, editors. Avian Growth and Development: Evolution within the Altricial-Precocial Spectrum. Oxford University Press, New York. 366-380. Scheiber, I. B. R., B. M. Weib, S. A. Kingma, and J. Kom- deur. 2017. The importance of the altricial-precocial spectrum for social complexity in mammals and birds – a review. Fron- tiers in Zoology, 14 (3), 1-20. Mike McKaig, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Speech Pathology at the University of Central Oklahoma. He got his first pigeons when he was six. Today he has homing pigeons, a breed he admires for its intelligence, athleticism, and stunning colors.•