This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intalyata. Got a minute?

City dwellers can attest that the animals they share the city with, the pigeons, rats, roaches, can all be pretty brazen when they're prowling for a bite.

While visiting Barbados, McGill University neurobiologist Sean Nikola O'Day noticed that

local bullfinches were accomplished thieves as well.

They were always trying to steal our food, and we can see those birds also entering in supermarkets trying to steal food there.

And that gave him an idea.

Since this bird species are able to solve amazing problems in cities and they are also present in rural areas.

We were wondering...

Are the rural birds also good problem solvers and they just don't take advantage of their abilities or are they

fundamentally different.

So Ade and his McGill colleagues captured Barbados bullfinches both in the islands towns

and out in the countryside and they then administered the bird equivalent of personality and IQ tests, assessing traits like boldness and fear, or timing how quickly the finches could open a puzzle box full of seeds.

And it turns out the city birds really could solve puzzles faster.

They were bolder too, except when it came to dealing with new objects,

perhaps assuming, unlike their more naive country cousins,

that new things can either mean reward or danger.

The study is in the journal Behavioral Ecology. The city birds also bested their country counterparts in one other trait.

They have more robust immune systems, possibly from scavenging food and water in dirty places, which suggests that sometimes

the city's dirt and grit may be the very thing that gives Avian residents a wing up.

Thanks for the minute.

For Scientific Americans 60 Second Science,

I'm Christopher and Dahlia.

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