Hypothesis
Individual exploratory behaviour would be consistent across contexts and over time in corvids, as expected if exploration is a personality trait.
What failed
In pinyon jays, Clark's nutcrackers, California scrub jays and black-billed magpies tested on novel-environment and novel-object tasks over repeated trials, individuals' exploration was repeatable neither across tasks nor across time.
Broken assumption
Exploration is a stable individual trait in all birds that show it.
Why
The authors find no evidence that exploration is a personality trait in these species; differences appeared only at the species level, possibly linked to how much each relies on cached food.
From the published paper: Vernouillet et al. Scientific Reports, 2020. ↗CC BY