Thousands of years ago, Aesop wrote a fable about a crow who used stones to raise the water in a pitcher so he could have a drink.
The latest issue of Current Biology documents this behaviour in a member of the crow family, the rook.
The authors next plan to use General Relativity/time dilation to determine who actually crossed the finish line first: the tortoise or the hare.
The crows are a resourceful family of birds. They have been shown to employ teamwork, use tools and solve multi-step problems. (Follow links for video) So much for birdbrains.
Kam, crows are definitely smarter than most people give them credit for... Check out Joshua Klein's TED talk from 2008 -- he trained North American crows collect coins and deposit them into a special vending machine in return for a peanut.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, you may wish to consider trading in your monkey butler for a selection of Aves...
Bah! That doesn't prove they're smart, just attention whores. I'm sure any Brad Pitt could be trained to do the same sort of shit...
ReplyDeleteAwesome vid though.