Cats, to those of us who appreciate their company, are fascinating creatures, with their infinite curiosity and playfulness. [Makers Muse] has a pair of half-grown-up kittens, and set out to provide them with a plaything far better than those the market could offer. The result is the Snak Attak, a gravity puzzle maze that delivers kibble for the cat prepared to puzzle it out.
The point of this exercise isn’t to give kibble but to provide the optimum play experience for a pair of younger cats. The premise is that kibble is held back by a set of wooden pegs each with a temptingly dangly string, and they should after some investigation be able to pull the pegs out and release it. What’s interesting is how the two different cats approach the problem, while one pulls the out as expected, the other pushes them from the back of the device.
The conclusion is that the two cats can indeed solve puzzles, and gain hours of play from the device. An updated version was produced with a few more challenges, and as you can see in the video below the break, it’s captivated their attention. It’s not the first cat toy we’ve brought you by any means, this robotic mouse springs to mind, but it’s certainly upped the ante on feline entertainment.
Cats can solve any puzzle that can easily be solved by liberal application of violence.
But cats spread brain modifying parasite Toxoplasma to control you.
You see a parasite, I see a testosterone booster.
/s
Yay testosterone with cuteness. The ultimate vape replacement.
Now that’s what I call a hack!
Perhaps more bizarre is the belief that only one parasite on one domesticated animal evolved this type of ability. There are probably more undiscovered parasites in you right now than there are articles on
Wikipedia. About any subject. And we have plenty of (domestic and wild) animal interactions old enough to evolve psychological parasitism or symbiosis.
If it evolved once and we found it, it definitely evolved twice (or two thousand times). Don’t worry about it, you are not a brain—you’re an interaction between a whole body, including a brain, and its biome of parasites and symbionts. And the broader environment. And maybe electromagnetics or quantum stuff, we don’t know yet. Nobody can be pure.
But if it’s tens of thousands of years old like housecats, it’s probably not a big deal
(This post was definitely not typed with paws)
Well said. I do think it’s interesting that length & intensity of domestication might have some effect on our molecular interaction though. I’ve read estimates that dogs have been domesticated for ~50k years and cats for only ~10k (a dog being useful to a hunter, but a cat only being useful after agriculture was invented). And this could help explain why human allergies to cats are much more common than allergies to dogs. We have had less time (and less pressure) to weed out that genetic trait.
For mice at least, it lowers general anxiety, increases explorative behaviors and increases a loss of aversion to predators. If it works on humans it will save quite a bit on anxiety medicine. And working for predators is the very definition of corporate life.
They may be able to solve problems, but do they WANT to?
Solving a puzzle or playing around with it until the answer presents itself are two completely different things, so I’d be careful with conclusion about the cat puzzle solving skills.
Many “puzzles” I’ve solved by just fiddling with them, I started with a plan and almost always overestimated myself. It always takes longer than expected and then (to my own amazement) I suddenly “solved” it (not knowing how I exactly did that). My wife than looks at me and thinks I’m smart but in reality I just refused to give up and eventually “solving” the puzzle was going to happen (or breaking it in the process, whatever comes first).
The Rubiks cube is still on the coffee table, unsolved.
If the cats can solve it repeatedly, with increasing speed, I would consider the assumption proved. And that is what I have observed.
Which makes sense. After all, survival is itself a puzzle to be solved. We try things until we find one that works, and then try to remember what worked. Ideally, we then figure out why it worked so we can generalize the solution, but that’s a second level of learning.
The difference between our brains and theirs is more one of degree and emphasis than of kind.
> If the cats can solve it repeatedly, with increasing speed, I would consider the assumption proved.
Solving the same simple puzzle repeatedly and faster is not enough to prove that assumption.
If the puzzle were changing slightly in every iteration and the cats were still solving it (faster), it would be another story…
I was hoping for some interlocking stuff were a specific order (visible from the outside) is required. Or one of those water level puzzles other animals can solve (throw tiny stones into a pipe system one one end to raise the level so the animal can reach the treat floating by the other end).
Just pulling or pushing several pins were the order is irrelevant does not make those cats puzzle solvers (imho).
Solving a puzzle that involves moving multiple pieces in sequence, with me trying to find new combinations (out of an admittedly limited repertoire of actions) requires intelligence and persistence in some mix. I haven’t set up a camera to document in detail how it is being solved, but some parts require moving a piece and then moving it back, others require moving one part to release another, and there are a few places where I can set up weak three-piece interactions.
One can debate how much understanding the cats have of the puzzle shown in the post — though I think the fact that one pushed the pins shows some comprehension of the mechanism. But I have enough evidence from other sources that I’m not in doubt.
(Refilling Hazel’s puzzle now. One of the move-and-move-back pieces is blocked by another piece which must be swiveled out of the way; we’ll see how long she takes to solve it )
Just fiddling with stuff has led to most of the progress in the world.
I remember watching a program where (common garden) birds figured out how to get food, by pulling out matches from holes in a see-through (acrylic) feeder. Removing the wrong match would trap the food.
There’s some good projects on here where you can train them to pick up bottle caps or other small trash and throw it away in exchange for food. “Train” might be too strong a term; the birds seem to mostly figure it out themselves.
I’ve also seen a wild corvid figure out how to steal fish from an ice fisherman by grabbing the line at the hole in the ice, dragging it far from the hole, then walking on top of the fishing line to keep it from slipping back into the water while the bird returns to the hole. A crow would have to repeat this process several times to get the entire line up and eat the fish.
Crows, jays, grackles, ravens, etc can also speak human languages but usually choose not to. They seem to be able to develop a vocabulary and recognize/respond to simple phrases, not simply mimic. I still think Earth might truly be the planet of the birds undergoing a brief primate bloom, we’ll see
Remember, birds _are_ dinosaurs, taxonomically speaking.
Don’t tell my parrot, he’ll get a big head
20,000,000,000 chickens alive at any one time on Earth. The most numerous vertebrate lifeform on the planet. One guy is shooting their eggs at 3 to 4 hundred miles per hour! If they ever figure it out we’re doomed. Planet Poultry!
Land vertebrate? There’s a fish called a bristlemouth that has vertebrae and apparently there’s a whole lot of ’em
Nah, you need brains and hands to really get to be a world dominating species, birds have sent themselves up an evolutionary blind alley.
World-dominating for how long? I admire your optimism if you think humans can drag on for 150 million years, even with hands. And birds have brains, maybe not our kind but our kind is more of an evolutionary curiosity—and may or may not prove to be advantageous long-term. Like if we poison ourselves or start too big a war or maybe even some more speculative science fiction thing, like if we accidentally create our own successors through non-biological means.
Too early to say. I hope we have a reaaally long wait to find out though
There are commercially available food puzzles designed for cats, mostly intended to leverage hunting behaviors. I have one with many sliding covers and one rotating disc, some of which can be set up to interact so one piece must be moved before another can be. These more directly connect the action to reward, since they involve moving a cover out of the way rather than operating a mechanism that is not directly associated with the food, but they certainly enough to watch the cats demonstrate problem solving ability. Including ability, or inability, to learn by observing each other; one of my cats figured out the puzzles significantly more rapidly that her brother, who took a while even after watching her.
A more complicated puzzle could be fun, both for the cat and for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze0-4mXq6jE
cats can indeed solve puzzles, open doors, and outsmart a large number of formerly moving food items. except that one cat who liked to bring home pets. they are also capable of social engineering. like convincing multiple humans to feed them or give them treats each day when only one feeding is supposed to happen.
IF they were bringing you live prey, you should be very flattered, since that is several orders of magnitude more difficult , AND THE CATS KNOW THAT.
Well that is very sweet but I kinda wish they knew about dry cleaning bills
The cat brings home the live prey because they think you’re a lousy hunter, the next time your cat does that just take him hunting, once he sees you bring something with a rifle he’ll be begging you for opposable thumbs, do not give them to him!
Or cause he’s a cutie and he loves you