Crows, like humans and other clever animals, have moods and memories. Strategies and expectations. They seem remarkably able to engage with complexity.
CHRIS BARANIUK: ‘New Caledonian crows belong to the corvid family of birds – as do jackdaws, rooks, jays, magpies and ravens. In recent years, the brains of these birds have been studied ever more closely. There is no doubt that some of them display impressive cognitive abilities… The specific kind of brain they have doesn’t really matter – corvids and primates share some of the same basic capabilities in terms of problem-solving and plasticity, or being able to adapt and change in the face of new information and experiences. This is an example of convergent evolution, where completely different evolutionary histories have led to the same feature or behaviour…
Christian Rutz at the University of St Andrews is unequivocal. Some birds, like the New Caledonian crows he studies – can do remarkable things. In a paper published earlier this year, he and his co-authors described how New Caledonians seek out a specific type of plant stem from which to make their hooked tools. Experiments showed that crows found the stems they desired even when they had been disguised with leaves from a different plant species. This suggested that the birds were selecting a kind of material for their tools that they knew was just right for the job…
You might think that some animals are smarter than others – with humans at the top of the proverbial tree… Ranking the intelligence of animals seems an increasingly pointless exercise when one considers the really important thing: how well that animal is adapted to its niche. Intelligence is, first and foremost, a means towards specialisation. As Rutz says, analysis of crows’ intelligence “cannot be divorced from the natural history of the animal”. And New Caledonians are far from the only non-human species to have evolved the ability to use tools. The list of other animals that share this trait includes chimpanzees, parrots, alligators and even crabs…
New Caledonian crows, like us and other clever animals, have moods and memories. Strategies and expectations. They seem remarkably able to engage with complexity. Evolution made this possible. But cognition, like life itself, serves more than just a need. Animal intelligence allows all sorts of fascinating phenomena to arise. A gorilla that recognises human language. A crow that solves puzzles. A parrot that tells jokes. Nature provided the notes, but animal brains make the music. The mind, as they say, is the only limit’. SOURCE…
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