Crows show advanced learning abilities
December 14, 2011
Corvus brachyrhynchos or Corvus caurinus. Image: Wikipedia.
New Caledonian crows have, in the past, distinguished themselves with their advanced tool using abilities. A team of researchers from the University of Auckland and the University of Cambridge have now shown these crows can learn to use new types of tools.
When confronted with the Aesop's fable paradigm, which requires stones to be dropped into a water-filled tube to bring floating food within reach, the crows quickly learned to use stones as tools.
They then preferred to drop into the tube large rocks rather than small rocks, and heavy objects over light objects (which floated on the surface of the water and so were ineffective).
Further experiments showed that the crows' performances were not based on simple learning, which suggests that the crows had some understanding of how the task actually worked. The authors, therefore, concluded that these crows have cognitive mechanisms beyond simple associative learning that are capable of processing causal information about novel tool types.
More information: Taylor AH, Elliffe DM, Hunt GR, Emery NJ, Clayton NS, et al. (2011) New Caledonian Crows Learn the Functional Properties of Novel Tool Types. PLoS ONE 6(12): e26887. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026887
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Dec 14, 2011
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Birds have to be prety creative in the wild. They build nests, which shows forward planning:
The ability to recognize a need in advance.
The ability to solve problems to provide for that need in advance.
Nobody ever animals were stupid, especially not birds.
In the Bible it is said they fed one of the prophets.
I've have a relative who saw crows carry a packet of Catsup, because they knew it was food.
They even know how to steal my cat's food and not get caught!
Dec 14, 2011
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Don't get me wrong:for an animal with a walnut sized brain,they are incredibly intelligent.I like the story about crows learning to drop nuts in traffic at light controlled intersections,and when a car runs over the nut and cracks it,they swoop down to claim their prize,AFTER the lights change to red!
Dec 16, 2011
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