crows making tools

[miriam_e]

I meant to post this a while back, but forgot to.

Some months back Betty the New Caledonian crow caused a stir when she demonstrated extraordinary tool-making intelligence. She spontaneously created a hook out of wire in order to get some food. Go to http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kgroup/tools/tools_main.html to read more about this and look at the short (1.2Mb) video there showing her actually doing it. At first she tries to get at the food using a straight piece of wire, and at one point almost manages to, but she soon realises this won't work and bends the end of the wire into a hook to lift the food container up.

Comments

Re: crows using tools

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Wow! That is amazing! Who would have thought they were strong enough to remove bungee cords, but more extraordinary than that: cooperation in such a difficult task!!!! Brilliant!

Crows are wonderful. I've watched them playing.

Where I live we have some very smart members of the crow family -- butcher birds. They display their intelligence in a number ways; the most impressive is their complex and variable, warbling song and other vocalisations. Another is their speedy learning ability. They are very friendly. Yesterday I was standing on my balcony talking on my cordless phone and a butcher bird flew down and landed on the railing easily within arm's reach watching me inquisitively. This was a wild bird! The are incredibly curious.