These Birds Learn to Recognize Humans They Hate

Antarctic seabirds called skuas are so clever that they can recognize individual humans after seeing them only a few times. Some Korean researchers discovered this by messing with the birds' nests and then waiting to get attacked. They're either very brave or have never watched The Birds. The study took place on Antarctica's King George Island. The animals here didn't evolve around humans. People have only been making appearances on the island since the 1950s or so. Today 10 countries have research stations on the island. Korea Polar Research Institute scientist Won Young Lee and his coauthors study brown skuas here, which are like big, dark-colored gulls. In the winter of 2014–2015, researchers visited skua nests once a week to check on their eggs and chicks. They suspected that the birds could recognize them, and were unhappy about humans poking at their nests. (If a skua wants you to go ...