We all have heard about the story of ‘The thirsty crow and the pitcher’, but have you ever wondered how did it struck the crow to put pebbles in the pitcher to raise the level of water just enough so that it can dip its beak and drink water from it. While the aim of this story was to teach a life lesson, experiments on crows have proved this story to be scientifically correct too.
Corvids is the family of songbirds that includes crows, ravens, jays, and Northern Hemisphere Magpies. With the intensive research on animal intelligence, researchers are slowly discovering the capabilities of many species. While, apart from humans only apes are considered species who are considered to be self aware, but according to recent studies, crows have proven to be extremely smart. They can use tools to get what they want. This was proven in a paper published in 2019, where New Caledonian crows were shown to seek out a certain stem of a plant to prepare their hooked tools. It was found that they could distinguish that particular stem even when it was hidden from plain sight by leaves of other plants. This ability to recognize the kind of material which will be just right for the job, signifies the crows’ mental ability.
In a 2020 study by Science, crows were found to ponder on the contents of information in their minds. Crows are capable of finding creative solutions to mundane things, like throwing nuts on roads so that the passing vehicle can crack it open. Intelligence is sourced from the brain, humans have a particular structure in their brains called neocortex, which helps in cognition. Crows lack this structure, instead they have densely packed structures of neurons that help them in cognition. But this absence of structure does not matter much as these corvids share some basic capabilities with the primates. When their brains were compared with those of chickens, pigeons and ostrich, it was found that their brains were very densely packed with almost 200-300 million neurons per hemisphere. These neurons help in effective communication in crows.
Crows are known to adapt and change with circumstances and information. Like humans, crows too recognize faces and remember the faces that once posed a threat to them. They are also known to use gestures to communicate. Evolution made this phenomenon possible, where a brain of size of human thumb is capable of performing tasks that require cognitive abilities.
Corvids is the family of songbirds that includes crows, ravens, jays, and Northern Hemisphere Magpies. With the intensive research on animal intelligence, researchers are slowly discovering the capabilities of many species. While, apart from humans only apes are considered species who are considered to be self aware, but according to recent studies, crows have proven to be extremely smart. They can use tools to get what they want. This was proven in a paper published in 2019, where New Caledonian crows were shown to seek out a certain stem of a plant to prepare their hooked tools. It was found that they could distinguish that particular stem even when it was hidden from plain sight by leaves of other plants. This ability to recognize the kind of material which will be just right for the job, signifies the crows’ mental ability.
In a 2020 study by Science, crows were found to ponder on the contents of information in their minds. Crows are capable of finding creative solutions to mundane things, like throwing nuts on roads so that the passing vehicle can crack it open. Intelligence is sourced from the brain, humans have a particular structure in their brains called neocortex, which helps in cognition. Crows lack this structure, instead they have densely packed structures of neurons that help them in cognition. But this absence of structure does not matter much as these corvids share some basic capabilities with the primates. When their brains were compared with those of chickens, pigeons and ostrich, it was found that their brains were very densely packed with almost 200-300 million neurons per hemisphere. These neurons help in effective communication in crows.
Crows are known to adapt and change with circumstances and information. Like humans, crows too recognize faces and remember the faces that once posed a threat to them. They are also known to use gestures to communicate. Evolution made this phenomenon possible, where a brain of size of human thumb is capable of performing tasks that require cognitive abilities.
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