New Caledonian Crows Can Combine Objects to Construct New Compound Tools

Sci-News.com ^ | Oct 29, 2018 | News Staff / Source

[ETL]

Assemblage of different components into novel functional and maneuverable tools has, until now, only been observed in apes, and anthropologists regard early human compound tool manufacture as a significant step in brain evolution.

Children take several years before creating novel tools, probably because it requires anticipating properties of yet unseen objects.

-snip-

In the study, Dr. Kacelnik and colleagues presented eight wild-caught New Caledonian crows with a puzzle box they had never encountered before, containing a small food container behind a door that left a narrow gap along the bottom.

Initially, the scientists left some sufficiently long sticks scattered around, and all the birds rapidly picked one of them, inserted it through the front gap, and pushed the food to an opening on the side of the box. All eight birds did this without any difficulty.

In the next steps, the team left the food deep inside the box but provided only short pieces, too short to reach the food.

These short pieces could potentially be combined with each other, as some were hollow and others could fit inside them.

In one example, they gave the birds barrels and plungers of disassembled hypodermic syringes. Without any help or demonstration, four of the crows partially inserted one piece into another and used the resulting longer compound pole to reach and extract the food.

At the end of the five-step investigation, the researchers made the task more difficult by supplying even shorter combinable parts, and found that one bird particular bird, ‘Mango,’ was able to make compound tools out of three and even four parts.

“The finding is remarkable because the crows received no assistance or training in making these combinations, they figured it out by themselves,” said study co-lead author Dr. Auguste von Bayern, from the Max-Planck-Institute for Ornithology and University of Oxford.

[dennisw]

The ratio of brain weight to body mass is the same for crows and humans. Amazing in my book and I always like crows when I see ‘em.

***** am open to input and correction on this.

[9YearLurker]

What are they, placing bets on the cat fight?

[DannyTN]

I thought the same thing. I thought “I should post Spiders buiding a web”. They’re master constructors.

[DannyTN]

I thought the same thing. I thought “I should post Spiders buiding a web”. They’re master constructors.

[kanawa]

Ping

[M Kehoe]

Hi.

I have observed many crows and ravens up close in the wild, and urban settings.
Over many years.

Imho, very intelligent. Tools, commo, etc.

5.56mm

[Tucker39]

Well they’ve convinced me. We didn’t evolve from apes. We evolved from Crows. Amazing!

[Tucker39]

Isn’t that a Magpie solving those toy puzzles? Impressive.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[jmcenanly]

Aesop wrote about this in one of his fables over 2500 years ago.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

[waterhill]

There are some cool vids on YT with rabbits and crows. They are mortal enemies.

[gnarledmaw]

I had recently read "The Mind of the Raven Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds" by Bernd Heinrich. I was a bit disappointed in that most of it was about the daily behavior and social interactions among members of groups. There was maybe a chapter and half toward the end that was very interesting that discussed interactions with other species and other elements that I been mislead by reviews to believe that the book was primarily about and would have wished there to be more information of this type. Still worth the read but didn't go far enough for what I was looking for.

[Getready]

Quite a feat!

[ETL]

They are smarter than many libs and Holyweird types.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term "bird brain". "Lib brain" would be more appropriate.