Precociality and altriciality relation with intelligence.

[Supercommunist]

It is commonly believed that altriciality is associated with higher intelligence. Humans for instance are obviously the most intelligent lifeform on Earth and have a very long helpless phase.

On the other hand, elephants are one of the most intelligent animals on the planet but have precocial young and ducks do as well and they don't seem to be dumb by bird standards.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160714151856.htm


As someone who has barely researched the topic I am guessing altriciality does help with brain development, but is not the end all be all. Animals like elephants probably evolved precocial young because it was impractical to have a helpless baby but if some hypothetical species of elephant developed an altricial maturation system they would probably be even more intelligent.

I am mostly interested in this topic since the majority of dinosaurs probably had precocial young whereas most modern birds altricial young.

[Infinity Blade]

Spotted hyenas are both precocial and very intelligent. They're born with their eyes open and have fully erupted, sharp deciduous teeth that they use to fight and kill their siblings with (Frank et al., 1991). Their social complexity also rivals that of cercopithecines (Holekamp et al., 2007), and their cooperative problem-solving abilities exceed that of most primates (Drea & Carter, 2009).

[Supercommunist]

I knew hyenas were intelligent but I didn't realize they were precocial.

[cj227]

I wonder about plesiosaurs. We know that at least Polycotylus was very K-selected.





However, we know that among most plesiosaurs the juveniles had partial pachyostotic (bone thickening) or pachyosteosclerotic (bone thickening and densification) skeletons like sirenians, pointing at near-shore/shallow water habits. Adults' skeletons, on the other hand, were usually osteoporotic, like that of most cetaceans and derived ichthyosaurs. I wonder how parental care would have been provided if juveniles and adults were adapted to different habitats. Perhaps the adults would leave the juveniles in "nurseries"? Lagoons, maybe?

[Supercommunist]

Yeah I think there was evidence that pliosaurs and plesiosaurs were very social animals so chances are they were highly intelligent.