Begley: Amazing Tool Use by Crows in New Video | Newsweek Voices – Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com.
A fascinating look at non-human intelligence – apparently crows/rooks are really smart! The videos are well worth a watch, and are from two different studies. One study shows crows using tools to get other tools (to eventually get food), as opposed to using tools directly to get food. This is apparently really rare in animals, even in other tool-users like chimpanzees. The other study shows rooks (closely related to crows) replicating the famous Aesop’s fable, by dropping pebbles in a container of water until the water (and a worm floating on it) becomes high enough for them to reach it. What I found particularly interesting was that when given different sized stones, they knew to drop the biggest ones first. I think learning how different animals use tools and are intelligent provides an interesting look at the evolution of intelligence, and what aspects of it are conserved in different species. One caveat I have with all these intelligence and tool-using tests is that we only know how to measure intelligence in a way that applies to humans. Nothing wrong with that of course, that’s how we do all experiments, and it’s still fascinating to find other animals that pass our tests. What it doesn’t mean is that just because an animal doesn’t pass our tests, it’s not intelligent in its own way, we may just not be asking the right questions or doing the right tests.