Chickens Are Smarter Than You Think

Sy Montgomery

 November 18, 2024
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Hæn-fugul (hen), Book of Hours; England, c. 1300; Walters Art Museum, MS W.102, f. 77v.

People think they know lots about chickens, and you’d think they would: There are four living chickens for every living person in the world—and since chickens are domestic fowl (a separate subspecies from their wild ancestor, the red jungle fowl of Southeast Asia), all of them live among humans.

Still, chickens are rarely celebrated in our culture and seldom given the respect they deserve. I once sat next to a man on an airplane who detailed for me at length the attributes of the species: they are stupid, disgusting, filthy, cowardly, occasionally cannibalistic automatons, he said.

How had he acquired this opinion? It turned out he had worked at a factory farmwhere most chickens are raised for food in the United States in a dirty, overcrowded warehouse resembling a prison camp.

This is not the best place to get to know someone. Nor is a dinner plate. Yet, for most of us, our relationship with chickens is generally of a culinary nature. In fact, the first definition of the word “chicken” I encountered on the internet doesn’t even mention that it’s a bird. It’s “the flesh of a chicken used for food.”

According to the National Chicken Council, the average American eats more than one hundred pounds of chicken every year, making it the most popular meat consumed in the United States. Worldwide, some 70 billion birds yearly are roasted, boiled, Kentucky Fried, and turned into everything from McNuggets to the famous “Jewish penicillin,” chicken soup.

Over the decades of sharing my life with successive flocks of these affectionate, industrious, and resourceful birds, I’ve learned that almost everything people “know” about chickens is wrong.

At the Agway feed store, my friend Gretchen ordered 12 chicks of the same breed she’d first owned—Black Sex-Links—for my husband Howard and me. They are so named because the females can be identified upon hatching by their all-black color, averting the problem of raising a coop full of jealous roosters. She hand-raised them in a heated trailer on the farm.

Howard and I often visited them there, holding one or two peeping chicks in our hands, on our laps, or tucked into our sweaters, speaking softly to each so she would know us. When they were old enough—no longer balls of fluff but sleek, slim black miniatures of their eventual adult selves—they moved into our barn. Our travels in the Chicken Universe had begun.

At first, I was afraid they’d run away or become lost. We prepared a cozy, secure home for them on the bottom floor of our barn, with wood shavings scattered over the dirt floor, a dispenser for fresh water, a trough for chick feed, some low perches made from dowels, and a hay-lined nest box made from an old rabbit hutch left over from one of the barn’s previous denizens, in which they could, in the future, lay eggs.

Chickens need to be safely closed in at night to protect them from predators, but by day, we didn’t want to confine them; we wanted to give them free run of the yard. But how could they possibly understand that they lived here now?

Once we let them out, would they even recognize their space in the barn and go back in it? When I was in seventh grade, my family moved to a new house; on my first afternoon there, I literally got lost in my own backyard. Could these six-week-old chicks be expected to know better?

Gretchen assured me there would be no problem.

“Leave them in the pen for 24 hours,” she told me. “Then you can let them out, and they’ll stick around.

They’ll go back in again when it starts to get dark.”

“But how do they know?” I asked.

“They just do,” she said. “Chickens just know these things.”

When I found them all perched calmly back in their coop before dusk, I saw that Gretchen was right.

In fact, chickens know many things, some from the moment they are born. Like all members of the order in which they are classified, the Galliformes, or game birds, just-hatched baby chickens are astonishingly mature and mobile, able to walk, peck, and run only hours after leaving the egg.

This developmental strategy is called precocial. Like its opposite, the altricial strategy (employed by creatures such as humans and songbirds, who are born naked and helpless), the precocial strategy was sculpted by eons of adaptation to food and predators. If your nest is on the ground, as most game birds’ are, it’s a good idea to get your babies out of there as quickly as possible before someone comes to eat them. So newborn game birds hatch covered in down, eyes open, and leave the nest within 24 hours.

They followed me everywhere, first cheeping like the tinkling of little bells, then clucking in animated adult discussion. If I were hanging out the laundry, they would check what was in the laundry basket. If I were weeding a flower bed, they would join me, raking the soil with their strong, scaly feet, then stepping backward to see what was revealed. (Whenever I worked with soil, I suspect they assumed I was digging for worms.)

When Howard and I would eat at the picnic table under the big silver maple, the Ladies would accompany us. When my father-in-law came to help my husband build a pen for Christopher Hogwood, who was still a piglet, the Ladies milled underfoot to supervise every move. The hens were clearly interested in the project, pecking at the shiny nails, standing tall to better observe the use of tools, and clucking a running commentary all the while.

Before this experience, Howard’s dad would have been the first to say that he didn’t think chickens were that smart. But they changed his mind. After a few hours, I noticed he had begun addressing them. Picking up a hammer they were examining, he might say, directly and respectfully, “Pardon me, Ladies”—as if he were speaking to my mother-in-law and me when we got in the way. But when their human friends are inside, and this is much of the time, the Ladies explore on their own.

A chicken can move as fast as nine miles an hour, which can take you pretty far, and ours have always been free to go anywhere they like. But ours have intuited our property lines and confine their travels to its boundaries. They have never crossed the street. For years, they never hopped across the low stone wall separating our land from our closest neighbors. That came later—and it was not the result of any physical change in the landscape but the outcome of a change in social relationships among their human friends.

My travels in the Chicken Universe have been a portal to an unknown kingdom. We all see birds daily, and chickens are among the most familiar birds. Yet again and again, as I watch the hens and roosters in my life, I am reminded how movingly like us birds can be—and how thrillingly different.

This adapted excerpt is from What the Chicken Knows by Sy Montgomery (Atria Books, 2024) and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) with permission from Atria Books. It was adapted and produced for the web by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Sy Montgomery is the author of Birdology (2010) and  The Hawk’s Way (2022).

Hundreds of 19th-century skulls collected in the name of medical science tell a story

The Conversation
November 18, 2024

Human Skull (AFP)

When I started my research on the Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection, a librarian leaned over my laptop one day to share some lore. “Legend has it,” she said, “John James Audubon really collected the skulls Morton claimed as his own.” Her voice was lowered so as not to disturb the other scholars in the hushed archive.

As my work progressed, I uncovered no evidence to substantiate her whispered claim. Audubon had collected human skulls, several of which he then passed on to Morton. But birds and ornithology remained Audubon’s passion.

Nevertheless, the librarian’s offhanded comment has proven useful – a touchstone of sorts that continues to remind me of the controversy and confusion long surrounding the Morton Collection.

Morton was a physician and naturalist who lived in Philadelphia from 1799 until the end of his life in 1851. A lecture he delivered to aspiring doctors at the Philadelphia Association for Medical Instruction outlined the reasons for his cranial compulsion:
“I commenced the study of Ethnology in 1830; in which year, having occasion to deliver an introductory lecture on Anatomy, it occurred to me to illustrate the difference in the form of the skull as seen in the five great races of men … When I sought the materials for my proposed lecture, I found to my surprise that they could be neither bought nor borrowed.”

He would go on to acquire almost 1,000 human skulls.

Morton used these skulls to advance an understanding of racial differences as natural, easily categorizable and able to be ranked. Big-brained “Caucasians,” he argued in the 1839 publication “Crania Americana,” were far superior to small-skulled American Indians and even smaller-skulled Black Africans. Many subsequent scholars have since thoroughly debunked his ideas.

Certainly, condemnation of Morton as a scientific racist is warranted. But I find this take represents the man as a caricature, his conclusions as foregone. It provides little insight into his life and the complicated, interesting times in which he lived, as I detail in my book “Becoming Object: The Sociopolitics of the Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection.”

My research demonstrates that studies of skulls and diseases undertaken by Morton and his medical and scientific colleagues contributed to an understanding of U.S. citizenship that valued whiteness, Christianity and heroic masculinity defined by violence. It is an exclusionary idea of what it means to be American that persists today.

Yet, at the same time, the collection is an unintended testament to the diversity of the U.S. population during a tumultuous moment in the nation’s history.


Samuel Morton wasn’t a lone voice on the fringe of medicine. 'Memoir of the life and scientific labors of Samuel George Morton' by Henry S. Patterson, CC BY

Men of science and medicine

As a bioarchaeologist who has studied the Morton Collection for many years, I have sought to better understand the social, political and ideological circumstances that led to its creation. From my work – analyzing archival sources including letters, laws, maps and medical treatises, as well as the skulls themselves – I’ve learned that, over a lifetime, Morton fostered a professional network that had far-reaching tentacles.

He had plenty of help amassing the collection of skulls that bears his name.

The physician connected with medical colleagues – many of whom, like him, received degrees from the University of Pennsylvania – gentleman planters, enslavers, naturalists, amateur paleontologists, foreign diplomats and military officers. Occupational differences aside, they were mostly white, Christian men of some financial means.

Their interactions took place during a pivotal moment in American history, the interlude between the nation’s revolutionary consolidation and its violent civil unraveling.

Throughout this stretch of time, Morton and his colleagues catalyzed biomedical interventions and scientific standards to more effectively treat patients. They set in motion public health initiatives during epidemics. They established hospitals and medical schools. And they did so in the service of the nation.

Not all lives were seen as worthy of these men’s care, however. Men of science and medicine may have fostered life for many, but they also let others die. In “Becoming Object,” I track how they represented certain populations as biologically inferior; diseases were tied to nonwhite people, female anatomy was pathologized, and poverty was presumed inherited.

From person to specimen

Such representations made it easier for Morton and his colleagues to regulate these groups’ bodies, rationalize their deaths and collect their skulls with casual cruelty from almshouse dissecting tables, looted cemeteries and body-strewn battlefields. That is, a sizable portion of the skulls in Morton’s collections were not culled from ancient graves but belonged to those of the recently alive.

It is no coincidence that Morton began his scientific research in earnest the same year Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Men of science and medicine benefited from the expansionist policies, violent martial conflicts and Native displacement that underpinned Manifest Destiny.


A drawing from Morton’s book of the skull of a Seminole man killed by American troops. A bullet hole is visible on the left side of the man’s head. 'Crania Americana' by Samuel George Morton, CC BY

The collection reveals these acts of nation-building as necropolitical strategies – techniques used by sovereign powers to destroy or erase certain, often already vulnerable, populations from the national consciousness. These skulls attest to precarious existences, untimely deaths and trauma experienced from cradle to beyond the grave.

In the specific case of Native Americans, skeletal analysis testifies to the violent effects of U.S. military campaigns and forced removal. Native skulls that Morton labeled “warriors” have evidence of unhealed fractures and gunshot wounds. Children’s skulls bear the marks of compromised health; such pathology and their young ages at death are evidence of long-standing malnutrition, poverty and deprivation or stress.


To effectively transform subjects into objects – human beings into specimens – collected crania were ensconced in the institutional spaces of medical school lecture halls and museum storage cabinets.

There, Morton first numbered them sequentially. These numbers along with information about race, sex, age, “idiocy” or “criminality,” cranial capacity and provenance were inked on skulls and written in catalogs. Very rarely was the person’s name recorded. If used as teaching tools, Morton drilled holes to hang the skulls for display and notated them with the names of skeletal elements and features.

As dehumanizing as this process was, the Morton Collection does contain evidence of resilience and heterogeneous lives. There are traces of people with mixed-race backgrounds such as Black Indians. Several people may have also bent gender to navigate dire conditions or in keeping with social norms, such as native Beloved Women, who were active in warfare and political life.



In contrast to those whose skulls ended up in his collection, Samuel Morton’s own grave was memorialized with a monument. Pamela L. Geller

What these bones mean today

As anthropologists now recognize, it is through the repatriation of the remains of the people in the Morton Collection to their descendants, among other types of reparations, that current practitioners may begin to atone for the sins of intellectual forebears. Indeed, all institutions housing legacy collections must contend with this issue.

There are other, valuable lessons – about diversity and suffering – that the Morton Collection has to impart in today’s interesting times.

The collection demonstrates that the American body politic has always been a diverse one, despite efforts of erasure by men like Morton and his colleagues. Piecing together the stories of past, disenfranchised lives – and acknowledging the silences that have made it difficult to flesh them out – counters past white nationalism and xenophobia and their current resurgence.

The collection, I believe, also urges the repudiation of violence, casual cruelty and opportunism as admirable attributes of masculinity. Valorizing men who embody these qualities has never served America well. Particularly in the mid-1800s, when Morton amassed skulls, it led to a nation divided and hardened to suffering, an unfathomable death count and the increasing fragility of democracy.

Pamela L. Geller, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Miami

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

New fossil reveals the evolution of flying reptiles

Complete specimen shows how the pterosaurs changed from early forms to the later giants

Queen Mary University of London

 

image: 

Photograph of the original specimen of Skiphosoura bavarica in natural and UV lighting.

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Credit: René Lauer

The pterosaurs are extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside their close relatives, the dinosaurs. The largest of these reached 10 m in wingspan, but early forms were generally limited to around 2 m. In a new paper today, a team led by palaeontologist Dr David Hone of Queen Mary University of London and published in the journal Current Biology describes a new species of pterosaur that helps to explain this important transition.

They named the animal Skiphosoura bavarica meaning ‘sword tail from Bavaria’ because it comes from southern Germany and has a very unusual short, but stiff and pointed tail. The specimen is complete with nearly every single bone preserved and unusually, it is preserved in three dimensions, where most pterosaurs tend to be crushed flat. In life it would have been about 2 m in wingspan, similar to that of large birds like the golden eagle.

For two hundred years, palaeontologists split the pterosaurs into two major groups, the early non-pterodactyloids and the later and much larger pterodactyloids. The early pterosaurs had short heads on short necks, a short bone in the wrist of the wing, a long 5th toe on the foot and long tails, and the pterodactyloids had the opposite: large heads on long necks, a long wrist, short 5th toe and short tail. But which parts of their body changed when between these groups was not known.

In the 2010s, a series of intermediate species called darwinopterans were found that revealed that the head and neck had changed first before the rest of the body. It was a great example of an intermediate that bridged an evolutionary gap. But it also meant we did not really know what was going on before or after these changes.

Skiphosoura reveals these changes. Evolutionarily it sits between these earlier darwinopterans and the pterodactyloids. It retains a very pterodactyloid-like head and neck, but also shows a longer wrist, and a shorter toe and tail than earlier darwinopterans but these are not as extreme as those seen in the pterodactyloids. With the study also comes a new reconstruction of the evolutionary family tree for pterosaurs. In addition to showing the intermediate position of Skiphosoura, it also shows that a Scottish pterosaur, Dearc, as fitting in the mirror position between the early pterosaurs and the first darwinopterans.

In other words, we now have a complete sequence of evolution from early pterosaurs to Dearc, to the first darwinopterans to Skiphosoura, to the pterodactyloids. While not every specimen is complete, we can now trace the increase in size of the head and neck, the elongating wrist, shrinking toe and tail and other features step-by-step across multiple groups. It’s a superb illustration of the evolution of a group for which the transition has been far from clear before.

Both Dearc and Skiphosoura are unusually large for their time also suggesting that the changes that enabled the pterodactlyoids to reach enormous sizes were appearing even in these transitional species.

Dr David Hone, from Queen Mary University of London, said: “This is an incredible find. It really helps us piece together how these amazing flying animals lived and evolved. Hopefully this study will be the basis for more work in the future on this important evolutionary transition”.

Adam Fitch, from the University of Wisconsin-Maddison, said: “Pterosaurs have long been symbols of the unique life of the past. Skiphosoura represents an important new form for working out pterosaur evolutionary relationships and by extension how this lineage arose and changed."

René Lauer of the Lauer Foundation said: “The specimen was disarticulated with bones of varying quality often overlaid upon one another. Digital photography of the specimen taken in both visible and UV light significantly aided in the process to identify these elements and to better analyze finer details that were not discernible in normal daylight alone” and Bruce Lauer of the Lauer Foundation said: “The Lauer Foundation is proud to have the opportunity to bring this important specimen to science and further the understanding of pterosaur evolution”.

Stefan Selzer an author on the project who prepared the specimen said: “As a preparator I have worked on more than 60 pterosaur specimens from Solnhofen limestone. I recognized during the final prep this specimen showed features that combined characteristics of both major groups of pterosaurs, with the shortened tail as the most important diagnostic feature.”

Life restoration of two Skiphosoura bavarica in flight.

Credit

Gabriel Ugueto.

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Journal

Current Biology

Article Title

A new and large darwinopteran reveals the evolutionary transition to the pterodactyloid pterosaurs

 

‘Map of Life’ team wins $2 million prize for innovative rainforest tracking

Yale University

Traditionally, taking inventory of the species in a rainforest requires sending in a team of experts with field guides and binoculars for a multi-day expedition. But the devastating pace of the destruction of the world’s rainforests and increasing urgency to better monitor and protect what remains demand faster, easier, and more efficient approaches.

Several years ago, a Yale-based team devised an alternate approach: they use lightweight, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to collect this critical biodiversity data in remote areas.

Now they’ve collected something else: a coveted international honor.

XPRIZE Rainforest, a $10 million global competition to find the most innovative technology for exploring Earth’s biodiversity, has awarded one of its top prizes to Map of Life Rapid Assessments (MOLRA), an international research group led by Walter Jetz, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and director of the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change.

The MOLRA team placed second in the five-year competition, earning a $2 million. XPRIZE Rainforest officials made the announcement Nov. 15 at a ceremony associated with the G20 Social Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

“We are immensely excited about this recognition,” said Jetz, who led in the creation of the groundbreaking Map of Life platform more than a decade ago. “In the face of rapid biodiversity loss, more accessible and effective tools to measure and plan for biodiversity are urgently needed. We are beyond grateful as the award will allow us to grow our solution that can quickly and cost-effectively deliver actionable biodiversity insights for locations anywhere.”

Map of Life is a global database that tracks the distribution of known species. It is now used by world leaders to monitor, research, and create policies that protect species worldwide.

MOLRA uses the Map of Life database as an engine to combine biodiversity research, innovative survey technologies, and cutting-edge informatics tools to deliver comprehensive local biodiversity information and support conservation action. The company’s fleet of semi-autonomous UAVs collect audio, visual, and environmental DNA samples with minimal human intervention.

The MOLRA XPRIZE team included members from the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Rutgers Environmental DNA Lab, the Federal University of Amazonas, Trinity University, the University of East Anglia, and Sony Group Corporation.

The five-year XPRIZE Rainforest competition — which seeks to enhance mankind’s knowledge of the rainforest ecosystem by highlighting innovative technology that expedites the monitoring of tropical biodiversity — began in 2019 with 300 teams from around the world.

In July, the competition’s six finalist teams were asked to survey 100 hectares of tropical rainforest near Manaus, Brazil, in 24 hours. Their task was to produce meaningful, real-time insights from their data within 48 hours. In addition, each team had to demonstrate the scalability of their technology.

The MOLRA team recorded 225 species from 5,500 individual, geolocated identifications, from anteaters to palm trees to frogs — thanks to a fleet of drones that were mostly pre-programmed to fly missions through the canopy. They collected more than 4,000 photos, 26 hours of audio recordings, and 24 eDNA samples (traces of DNA left by organisms in soil, water, and in the air).

The team was able to identify species from raw samples because of its advanced new modeling technology, state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, innovative eDNA processing techniques, and collaboration with biodiversity experts in Brazil and all over the world. Four of the recorded species are globally threatened with extinction, including the giant anteater, the yellow-footed tortoise, the ringed woodpecker, and the white-crested guan.

In the semifinal round, in 2023, MOL Rapid Assessments identified more than 150 species in the central rainforest of Singapore. This came after accumulating 2,199 visual samples, 292 acoustic samples, and 1,419 species identifications of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects.

Several factors contributed to the MOLRA team’s success in the XPRIZE Rainforest competition, Jetz said. First, it leveraged the Map of Life to predict what species might be found at any site around the world — helping to guide sampling design and the use of AI. Second, no specialists were needed to operate the system on the ground thanks to MOLRA’s largely autonomous nature. Finally, MOLRA’s combination of AI and human biodiversity experts optimizes the breadth and accuracy of species identifications. 

MOLRA will use the prize money to hire staff and expand its work around the world, Jetz said. With support from Yale Ventures (a university initiative that supports innovation and entrepreneurship campuswide), the team is working with partners across domains and sectors to deliver effective and accessible biodiversity measurement solutions.

“Our goal is to deliver a scalable, easy to use, and low-cost biodiversity assessment solution that empowers local stakeholders to protect the natural places they depend on — at the speed we need to meet the world’s ambitious biodiversity goals,” said Nigel Pitman, a botanist at the Field Museum in Chicago who coordinated the MOLRA plant inventory. 

“The technological advances and automation of biodiversity surveys is a major step towards being able to catalog the distribution of the Earth’s biodiversity efficiently and effectively,” said Izeni Farias, a member of the MOLRA team from the Federal University of Amazonas in Brazil. “The MOLRA tools are accessible and simple to use and can be used to deliver immediate conservation insights to local communities and strategic partners, resulting in meaningful conservation actions.”

The MOLRA team drew on the expertise of more than a dozen taxonomic experts from around the world and received crucial support from Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute), Sony, Google, and the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. 

 

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Stray dogs in Giza become tourist draw after 'pyramid puppy' sensation

by Menna Farouk

Nov 17, 2024

A pack of about eight dogs has made its home among the ancient ruins of the Giza Pyramids — Khaled DESOUKI

Beneath the blazing Egyptian sun, crowds at the Giza Pyramids gazed up at the ancient wonders, but some had their eyes peeled for a new attraction.

"There he is," one Polish tourist told his wife as they spotted a scrappy dog perched on one of the stones.

They were talking about Apollo, a stray who became an overnight sensation last month after being filmed scaling the Great Pyramid of Khafre, one of the seven wonders of the world.

The viral footage, captured by American paragliding enthusiast Alex Lang and shared online by his friend Marshall Mosher, showed Apollo fearlessly climbing the 136-metre monument, barking at birds from the summit.

"He was acting like a king," Lang told AFP.

As news of Apollo's daring climb spread worldwide, interest grew in the dogs who have long made their homes among the ancient stones.

"He is climbing over there," said Arkadiusz Jurys, a tourist from Poland, craning his neck for a better view.

"It is unusual," he added, describing Apollo as surveying the picture-snapping crowd from above.

Another visitor, Diego Vega from Argentina, felt a special bond with the dogs.

"Connecting with them feels like connecting with the pharaohs," he said, while petting a member of Apollo's pack.

- Sales up -

Apollo's newfound fame has even inspired local guides to include him and his pack in their stories for tourists.

"This is Anubis," one tour guide told two American tourists, comparing Apollo, now known as the "pyramid puppy", with the ancient Egyptian god of the dead, often depicted as a man with a jackal's head.

"He and his pack are now part of our tour conversations," said Sobhi Fakhry, another tour guide.

Businesses around the Giza plateau are also seeing a boost.

Umm Basma, a 43-year-old woman selling souvenirs near the Khafre pyramid, reported an increase in sales thanks to the influx of tourists eager to meet the so-called pyramid dogs.

"We've always seen these dogs climbing the pyramids, but we never thought they would become a blessing for us," she said.

One pyramid guard, who preferred to remain anonymous, also said that some celebrities had paid for permits to have their own dogs photographed with Apollo.

Apollo, a three-year-old Baladi dog, is part of a pack of about eight that has made their home among the ancient ruins.

The dogs, a local breed, are known for their resilience, intelligence and ability to survive in Egypt's harsh climate.

Ibrahim el-Bendary, co-founder of the American Cairo Animal Rescue Foundation, which monitors the pyramid dogs, described Apollo as the pack's "alpha male".

"He is the bravest and strongest in his pack," he said.

Apollo was born in a rocky crevice within the Khafre pyramid where his mother, Laika, found shelter. Sadly, some of Apollo's siblings did not survive the site's perilous heights.

A sympathetic guard eventually relocated Laika to a safer spot where Apollo now stands out with his distinctive curled tail and confident nature.

- Dog adoptions -

The initial focus of Lang and Marshall was the daring canine climber, but their visit led to a deeper connection with Cairo's stray dogs.

Intrigued by the challenges they face, Mosher decided to adopt a puppy from the pack: Anubi, who is Apollo's daughter.

Anubi will join Marshall in the US after she receives the dedicated care she needs in Egypt to grow up healthy.

At the pyramids, local animal care groups are now working with the government in order to set up food and water stations for the strays, as well as for other animals including camels and horses.

A permanent veterinary centre will be established at the pyramids with staff set to receive animal care training, said Egypt's tourism minister.

Vicki Michelle Brown, the other co-founder of the American Cairo Animal Rescue Foundation, believes that Apollo's story can make a difference.

"It sheds so much light on the dogs and cats that are here," Brown said.

"I definitely believe him (Apollo) climbing the pyramids can help all of the dogs in Egypt to have a better life."