Crows Spotted Making Tools Of Their Own

When we call someone a “bird brain”, it is an insult to one’s intelligence for obvious reasons – birds aren’t very smart in the first place. However, it looks like things might change down the road if this new discovery widens its scope – a camera has caught some resourceful crows make tools of their own. These are New Caledonian crows that actually have the capability to form their own hook-shaped tools that are then used for foraging purposes.

The New Caledonian crows have been known for a decade to use tools, but these have been seen only in laboratory experiments. It looks like having observed them for hundreds of hours in their natural habitat, these crows also displayed the same kind of resourcefulness. How did these feathered friends of hours get observed? Well, small cameras which have been attached to the crows’ tail feathers were able to capture video them in their natural foraging behaviors.

This particular strategy worked pretty well, and the crows have since been caught on film creating and using a hook-shaped tool when it comes to pulling out food from crevices in logs as well as from beneath leaf litter. Of course, this does not mean that crows will end up evil one day and take over our world!

Edwin Kee
Categories: General
Tags: Science