Thursday, July 09, 2009

Tool Making Crows! Now That's One Smart Bird Brain.

My grandfather used to tell me stories about how smart crows were. I rarely believed him until now. Watch this video that is making the rounds of the internet. The crow in the video uses a wire to try to get at food. when the straight wire doesn't work he figures out a better method. Watch and be very afraid!

2 comments:

Lex Divinia said...

In Biological Anthropology, we studied primates using tools to obtain termites from tunnels and rocks to open nuts, etc.

THIS, a small brained bird, not only using a tool to get food, but _modifying_ it for accurate results is goose bump inducing!!!

Now, I turn to look at my Quaker parrot sitting so humbly on his cage and wonder what he is truly capable of.

Thank you for posting such an interesting video!

Hardy Haberman said...

It is indeed goose bump inducing. The Crow learned to make a tool and in subsequent tests repeated the behavior. Having had birds as pets, I often wondered if they weren't smarter than they let on. My cockatiel often tried to play with the letters when we were playing Scrabble. I should have waited to see what he spelled!