Reptiles and birds are a fascinating group of animals that is most critical to understanding the evolution of vertebrate brains. Birds, who are in fact living dinosaurs, are the only class of vertebrates that can rival mammals with respect to their cognitive abilities. And they do so with brains that are vastly different from ours. This book chapter that was written by biopsychologists from Bochum reviews what we know about reptilian and avian brains in terms of quantitative analyses, structures, and systems. Brains evolved to produce behavior. Therefore, all anatomical and physiological information in this chapter is embedded into a functional framework and provides a rich summary on the current knowledge on archosaur brains.

Güntürkün, O., Stacho, M., Ströckens, F., 2017. The Brains of Reptiles and Birds. In: Kaas, J (ed.), Evolution of Nervous Systems 2e. vol. 1, pp. 171–221. Oxford: Elsevier.