Trouble remembering a face?

Tweet Then perhaps you could learn a lesson from feral pigeons! These "flying rats" as my elder brother calls them, are smarter than you might have thought: and they can remember your face.

According to researchers in Paris, from the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, these untrained pigeons never forget your face and are not fooled by a change of clothes. In  paper presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Glasgow, they reported how they used two researchers of similar size and features, but wearing different coloured Lab coats, who either ignored or chased away the feeding feral pigeons. Then they swapped coats and both ignored their feathered friends: the birds gave the aggressive researcher a wide berth, even though he just sat there quietly. As the lab coats covered 90% of them, all the birds could work on was the facial features of the researchers.

So next time you pass someone in the street and fail to recognize them, if they call you a bird brain: take it as a compliment!