South Korean researchers have conducted a study after they discovered some interesting signs that Antarctic seabirds may remember and recognize humans even after meeting them just a few times.

The Christian Science Monitor reported that it’s not strange for intelligent bird species to be able to remember interactions with humans. It is due to this reason that they can easily understand why they can recognize people. Known among the most intelligent bird species, crows are apt examples of creatures that will certainly recognize you from the time they have seen you.

Brown skuas, with scientific name Stervorarius antarcticus, are Antarctic birds that generally don’t make contact with humans. However, they recognized the human researchers that carried out a research over their breeding habits in just a few visits.

Won Young Lee, one of the study's researchers, said they were amazed to see that brown skuas, which evolved and stayed in human-free habitats, remembered individual humans only after 3 or 4 visits. Lee said that they apparently have quite high levels of cognitive abilities.

They also came to know that in case a number of humans approached the birds, then they were more likely to attack the ones they have had come in contact with earlier.

While speaking to Science Daily, Yeong-Deok Han, one of the researchers, said, “I had to defend myself against skuas' attack. When I was with other researchers, the birds flew over me and tried to hit me. Even when I changed my field clothes, they followed me. The birds seemed to know me no matter what I [wore]”.

Though the researchers were attired in similar clothes even, then the birds manage to recognize one from another. As per the researchers, this indicated that the birds identified the humans by reading their facial features.