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Throughout history, and possibly due to mythology, crows have always been seen as sinister birds, symbols of bad luck. But the truth is that these black plumage birds are among the 5 smartest animals in the world. Crows can socialize with each other, remember faces, talk, reason and solve problems.
The brain of crows is proportionally the same size as that of a human being and it has been shown that they can cheat among themselves in order to protect their food. Furthermore, they are able to imitate sounds and vocalize. Want to know more about the intelligence of the crows? Then don't miss this Animal Expert article!
crows in japan
As with pigeons in Portugal, in Japan we find crows everywhere. These animals know how to adapt to the urban environment, in such a way that they even take advantage of the traffic to break nuts and eat them. They throw the nuts out of the air so that the cars can break them as they pass over them, and when the traffic stops, they take advantage of them and go down to pick up their fruit. This type of learning is known as operant conditioning.
This behavior demonstrates that the crows created a corvida culture, that is, they learned from each other and passed on the knowledge to each other. This way of acting with walnuts started with those in a neighborhood and is now common throughout the country.
Tool design and puzzle solving
There are many experiments that demonstrate the intelligence of crows when it comes to reasoning to solve puzzles or make tools. This is the case of the crow Betty, the first issue that Science magazine published to demonstrate that these birds could create tools as with primates. Betty was able to create a hook from the materials they placed around her without ever having seen how it was done.
This behavior is very common in wild crows that live in forests and that use branches and leaves to create tools that help them to get larvae from inside the trunks.
Experiments were also carried out where it was shown that crows do logical connections to solve more or less complex problems. This is the case with the rope experiment, in which a piece of meat was hooked onto the end of a string and the crows, who had never faced this situation before, know perfectly well that they have to pull the rope to get the meat.
are aware of themselves
Have you ever wondered if animals are aware of their own existence? It may seem like a rather silly question, however, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (signed July 2012) states that animals are not human are aware and are able to display intentional conducts. Among these animals we include mammals, octopuses or birds, among others.
To argue whether the crow was self-conscious, the mirror test was carried out. It consists of making some visible mark or putting a sticker on the animal's body, so that you can only see it if you look in a mirror.
The reactions of self-aware animals include moving their bodies to see themselves better or touching each other while seeing the reflection, or even trying to remove the patch. Many animals have shown to be able to recognize themselves, among which we have the orangutans, chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants and crows.
the crows box
To harness the intelligence of crows, a haker in love with these birds, Joshua Klein, proposed an initiative consisting of training of these animals for them to collect garbage from the streets and deposit it in a machine that gives them food in return. What is your opinion about this initiative?
