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Author Topic: BBC - Crows could be the smartest animals (other than primates)  (Read 2472 times)

ehbowen

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BBC - Crows could be the smartest animals (other than primates)
« on: December 15, 2019, 10:04:13 am »
From the BBC:

Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

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Quote
Back then, in 2002, Betty’s feat was a source of amazement. How did this crow solve such a complex problem so spontaneously? It suggested mental acrobatics akin to our own. This, the headlines read, was one stunningly clever crow.

Except that Betty was not quite as special as some first thought. Many years later, research showed that New Caledonian crows are habitual tool-benders. In the wild, they do it all the time. Observers had initially been startled by Betty’s behaviour because it looked as though she had come up with the design for her hooked tool on the fly. Like an engineer inventing a new machine. In reality, New Caledonians have evolved to make hooked tools from soft twigs as part of their usual foraging activity.

I can believe this. When my father was a child he tells us that his family had a pet crow, named 'Jim Crow' (hey, it was Louisiana in the early '40s), who spoke English about as well as a two-year-old human child. He remembers the crow saying, "Mama! Mama! Dog! Dog!" when a strange dog came in the yard.
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Re: BBC - Crows could be the smartest animals (other than primates)
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2019, 03:56:03 pm »
From the BBC:

Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

Fair Use Quote:
I can believe this. When my father was a child he tells us that his family had a pet crow, named 'Jim Crow' (hey, it was Louisiana in the early '40s), who spoke English about as well as a two-year-old human child. He remembers the crow saying, "Mama! Mama! Dog! Dog!" when a strange dog came in the yard.

I can believe it too, though sadly I don't have any adorable anecdotes to add - I just frequently feel as though when I talk to the crows in the street, they're listening to me, more so than any other bird.
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Sefiru

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Re: BBC - Crows could be the smartest animals (other than primates)
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2019, 06:21:51 pm »
I can believe this. When my father was a child he tells us that his family had a pet crow, named 'Jim Crow' (hey, it was Louisiana in the early '40s), who spoke English about as well as a two-year-old human child. He remembers the crow saying, "Mama! Mama! Dog! Dog!" when a strange dog came in the yard.

I've read that ravens are even smarter, though that was a book about ravens specifically, so probably biased. (I remember there was a National Geographic article about it once. The photographer got some great shots of a raven opening the storage compartment of a snowmobile and raiding the contents ... then the raven flew off and the snowmobile's owner blamed the photographer for the mess.)

Both corvids and parrots live in large flocks, which has been posited as a reason for higher intelligence - needing to recognise individuals and keep track of relationships etc.
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