COMPARING SPATIAL MEMORY IN 2 SPECIES OF TIT - RECALLING A SINGLE POSITIVE LOCATION

The performance of a food-storing species, the marsh tit (Parus palustris), was compared with that of a nonstorer, the blue tit (P. caeruleus), in a spatial memory task in which birds had to return to a site where they had previously been allowed to eat part of a piece of peanut. No differences were found between species' overall performance, but increasing retention interval from 1 min to 24 h brought about a decrease in performance. The results are discussed in relationship to the hypothesis that food-storing birds have a specialized spatial memory capacity.