10 Dumbest Birds in the World

key point:

• People should not be judged by their appearance. The secretary bird may look silly with its stork legs and eagle head, but it can kill predators in an instant.
• Cardinals, number 5 on the list, are considered unintelligent due to their tendency to fly where they shouldn’t, such as windows and glass doors.
• fight or flight? When it comes to kakapo, neither option will work. It freezes up in the face of predators, resulting in a high mortality rate, making it number one on our list of the dumbest birds.

For the most part, people only pay attention to a bird’s intelligence if it’s very intelligent. But what about the stupid bird? You’ve heard the idiom for ostriches burying their heads in the sand to avoid problems. We do say “bird brain” as an insult, but that has nothing to do with a particular species. Let’s learn more about the dumbest looking and acting birds in the world, and why they seem to rank so low on IQ scales.

The Dodo: The Dumbest Bird Ever?

The dodo is the name of an extinct flightless bird. It lives in the forests of the island of Mauritius. Although it is larger than the wild turkey, it is related to the pigeon. Extinct in the late 17th century, the bird became a symbol of extinction due to human encroachment into its wild, isolated habitat.

The word “dodo,” from the world’s least intelligent bird, became a slang term for an unintelligent person. One of the theories behind its etymology is that it comes from the Portuguese word dodo, meaning “fool” or “crazy.” However, this bird may actually be as smart as pigeons and other members of the dove family. It’s considered the dumbest bird because we don’t think it realizes it’s being killed, but it’s no serious threat before humans, and it’s impossible to fly away and escape.

#10: Secretary Bird

The secretary bird comes from Africa and makes its home on the savannah. Because of their appearance, they look like one of the least intelligent birds. With heads that look like those of an eagle and legs that look like those of a stork, they are deadly deceptive to predators. They have a dangerous defense mechanism, with long, fast, powerful legs and sharp clawed toes that can transmit 36.5 pounds of force in 15 milliseconds from a bird weighing about 7.3 pounds. This ninja-like self-defense makes it difficult for poisonous snakes to bite them before they are trampled to death.

#9: Northern Storm Horse

The parents of northern fulmar chicks seem to be the silliest of birds. Female northern fulmars return to land only to nest on rocky reefs over the North Atlantic and North Pacific, lay an egg, and feed their flightless young.

However, chicks are not completely weak or defenseless. They have parts of their stomachs called gastric glands that store rancid oils. If a predator gets too close or threatens them, they squirt this oil, which can negatively affect the predator’s ability to hunt in the future. Birds of prey were vomited and unable to fly, while foxes and other mammals were vomited in the face. Neither can remove them so their prey are able to smell them.

#8: Ostrich

Many times we have heard someone described as having their head in the sand like an ostrich. This is an idiom about avoiding problems. In fact, we think ostriches stick their heads in the sand when a predator is nearby because that’s all we can see from a distance. What’s happening is that this ostrich is most likely a female ostrich, uses her beak to turn her eggs, and if she needs to escape a predator, she can run as fast as 45 miles per hour.

There’s a more specific reason why we think ostriches are one of the least intelligent birds around, though. They have oversized eyes and undersized brains. We generally believe that the size of the brain should be proportional to the body size of the animal in order to maintain and improve intelligence, and the brain of the ostrich is too small.

#7: Turkey

The turkey is not so much the least stupid bird as it is one of the most confused. They have monocular vision, which means their eyes are on either side of their head, and they see different things from each eye. While doing so, they may tilt their head to one side.

But that’s not the weird part. When it rains, they stand with their mouths wide open trying to drink the rain, and they drink only when the rain falls from their heads, and they die. Turkeys that engage in this behavior are affected by an inherited neurological disorder called tonic torticollis, which was first reported from a series of medium-white turkeys.

#6: Emu

Among several emu experts, including a Canadian scientist and a former emu breeder, emus are considered one of the least intelligent birds. They are not as smart as crows but smarter than turkeys, but they are easily fooled. A person threatened with an emu attack can appear larger simply by holding a stick above their head.

Some might argue that their flightless wings also label them unintelligent. If you can’t fly, why do you have wings? However, emu wings help them in other ways. They live in Australia, where it tends to be very hot. An emu cools down with its wings, extending them to allow air to surround their bodies. Their wings also help them run faster by guiding them in the right direction.

#5: Cardinal

Cardinals are one of those common everyday birds that we notice but don’t think much about other than the colorful red plumage of the males. If you have cardinals flying around your house, you may give them less thought. The birds flew into glass windows and sliding doors. If you think learning should be easy the first time, you’re right, and other birds think so too. That’s not it! This bird is determined to go where it simply cannot go, and for this reason, it is one of the dumbest birds in the world.

#4: Killer Deer

Killer Deer is a walking billboard of prey. Their calls are high-pitched screams. If that wasn’t enough, they don’t have the instinct to fly like other animals. Instead, what they do to their predator is stand up and down. Also, they nest on the ground.

But that’s not all! It manages to make up for this to some extent with its protective behavior towards its young. When a predator approaches the den, the deer will scream and run towards the predator, pretending to have a broken wing. This convinces the predator that it has eaten quickly and easily, until the hunting deer suddenly flies back to the den.

#3: Lilac Breast Roller

The lilac-breasted marmot is Kenya’s national bird. Although it looks very beautiful, its behavior makes it one of the dumbest birds in the world. For one thing, it nests in impossibly high places. It is also killed by poachers and hunters because it stays in one place instead of fleeing.

#2: Red-necked butterflies

Red neck corals are native to the UK. While other chrysalis migrate from Scandinavia and Russia to the Arabian Sea for the winter, this species has the second largest migration route in the world. About the size of a house sparrow, this tiny bird makes its home on the high seas, despite its high mortality rate during its journey. It feeds on plankton in the Atlantic Ocean, reaches Canada, descends to the Caribbean, and stops in Ecuador and Peru. You might think that birds don’t fly west because of how difficult it is to cross the Atlantic, but it would take at least the average bird’s brain.

#1: Kakapo

This peculiar-sounding parrot owl from New Zealand eats on the ground, and its diet consists of berries that only grow once every four years. Its mortality rate is high in the presence of predators. Instead of fleeing based on flight instinct, the kakapo froze in one place. The flightless bird that looks like an owl is surprisingly a parrot. Males make loud, disturbing courtship calls that confuse females, plus human predators, and there are fewer than 200 left in the world today. The dumbest bird in the world must be the kakapo, which, like the dodo, had no natural enemies before the arrival of humans and did not pose a threat to its population.

bird brain myth

Where did the bird-brain myth come from, that there are so many birds of average and high IQ? The problem with quantifying bird intelligence is that we don’t have a standardized method for all species. What we can do is we can compare the cognitive abilities of different birds in terms of the tasks they can do.

It is not true that the bigger the animals, the smarter they are. What matters is the brain to body ratio. Intelligent birds that can talk and learn tricks, such as parrots, have specialized brain structures that allow them to produce and imitate sounds. These same structures also play a role in body movement.

The dumbest birds in the world are clumsy in appearance, clumsy in behavior or both. The hierarchy of intelligent birds places parrots and birds of prey at the top, several birds of moderate intelligence in the middle, and the dumbest birds at the bottom. Some of the silliest birds have dangerous behaviors, or have no real predators or threats to their populations until humans invade their isolated habitats. As you can see, looks are not everything intellect.

The dumbest birds in the world summary

Is the dodo making a comeback?

A group of scientists plans to try to recreate a version of the dodo by editing the genes of its closest relative, the Nicobar pigeon. They have successfully sequenced the extinct bird’s genome from ancient DNA. Next, they plan to take germ cells from pigeon eggs, genetically edit them to make them more dodo-like, and then implant those cells into pigeon eggs. This method works in chickens — but it hasn’t been tested on other birds. If scientists do create a bird with genes like the dodo – it’s going to have a tough life. It has to learn how to survive without other members of its kind learning.

IAN WARKENTIN

I am broadly interested in how human activities influence the ability of wildlife to persist in the modified environments that we create.

Specifically, my research investigates how the configuration and composition of landscapes influence the movement and population dynamics of forest birds. Both natural and human-derived fragmenting of habitat can influence where birds settle, how they access the resources they need to survive and reproduce, and these factors in turn affect population demographics. Most recently, I have been studying the ability of individuals to move through and utilize forested areas which have been modified through timber harvest as they seek out resources for the breeding and postfledging phases. As well I am working in collaboration with Parks Canada scientists to examine in the influence of high density moose populations on forest bird communities in Gros Morne National Park. Many of my projects are conducted in collaboration or consultation with representatives of industry and government agencies, seeking to improve the management and sustainability of natural resource extraction.