"Commenting on the research, visual neuroethologist Jochen Zeil, from the Australian National University, says the findings are no laughing matter. "I'm not surprised that they found pigeons could distinguish the fine details of paintings," he says.
Zeil notes that people often underestimate how well other animals can see. "This research gives us a better appreciation of how amazing animals other than ourselves are in terms of their visual abilities," he says.
In order to tease out the critical faculties of pigeons, Watanabe and his colleagues first showed a pigeon 10 paintings by Monet. Then they asked the same pigeon to identify -- peck out -- a different work by the same artist from a mixture of paintings by Monet, Renoir, Matisse and Delacroix. The pigeons were able to do this for a range of other artists as well, including Picasso, Van Gogh and Chagall."
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