Showing posts with label avian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label avian. Show all posts
Thursday, September 29, 2011

Crows: Suspiciously Smart

Crows have been getting a bad wrap lately. They're always depicted as evil scavengers often found pecking fresh eyeballs in crime drama shows. The person that named a group of crows a "murder" doesn't help the stereotype either. However, crows are actually considered one of the world's most intelligent animals in the world. I'm not talking about the cute "walk through a maze" smart either, I'm talking about "make tools to take over mankind" smart.

Just eating a shark. Nothing to see here.

Crows have been shown to be one of the few animals in the world that can use and construct tools. Both domestic and wild crows have shown certain abilities that make them creepily smart. For example, wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use breadcrumbs for baiting fish in pools. One crow took/found a piece of bread, held it beneath it's feet, tore the bread to little pieces, threw the pieces into a pool and expertly extract nibbling fish under the water. Wait a few more years, and they'll be dangling keys in front of little boys and girls in the playground.