Crows can make their own tools: Clever birds figure out how to slot together pieces of a disassembled syringe to dig out morsels of food hidden by scientists
- Scientists filmed Caledonian crows assembling tools made of two to four pieces
- Without any help or demonstration the birds worked out how to fit them together
- They used the tools to drag a piece of food along a slot to an open doorway
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Clever crows can assemble tools from two or more non-functional components, a feat previously only seen in humans and great apes.
Scientists videoed captive Caledonian crows slotting together rod pieces to create a tool long enough to extract a food reward.
In one experiment, the birds were presented with the barrels and plungers of disassembled syringes.
Without any help or demonstration, four of the eight birds partially inserted the plunger to manufacture the right length of tool.
Without any help or demonstration, four of the eight birds partially inserted the plunger to manufacture the right length of tool. The birds used the tools to drag a piece of food, a grub, along a slot to an open doorway
One star performer, called Mango, was able to make compound tools out of three and even four parts.
The birds used the tools to drag a piece of food, a grub, along a slot to an open doorway.
Researcher Dr Auguste von Bayern, from Oxford University and the Max-Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, said: ‘The finding is remarkable because the crows received no assistance or training in making these combinations, they figured it out by themselves.’
New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides), from the island chain of New Caledonia in the South Pacific, are renowned for their tool-making ability.
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In 2002, a New Caledonian crow called Betty famously became the first animal shown to be able to create a hooked tool by bending pliable material.
Professor Alex Kacelnik, from Oxford University, said: ‘The results corroborate that these crows possess highly flexible abilities that allow them to solve novel problems rapidly, but do not show how they do it.
‘It is possible that they use some form of virtual simulation of the problem, as if different potential actions were played in their brains until they figure out a viable solution, and then do it.
‘Similar processes are being modelled on artificial intelligences and implemented in physical robots, as a way to better understand the animals and to discover ways to build machines able to reach autonomous creative solutions to novel problems.’
The research is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
One of the researchers said the latest findings were ‘remarkable’ because the crows received no assistance or training in making these combinations and had to figure out by themselves how to slot the pieces together
Clever crows can assemble tools from two or more non-functional components, a feat previously only seen in humans and great apes. In one experiment, the birds were presented with the barrels and plungers of disassembled syringes
WHY CROWS ARE AS SMART AS CHILDREN
Crows have a reasoning ability rivalling that of a human seven-year-old, research has shown.
Scientists came to the conclusion after subjecting six wild New Caledonian crows to a battery of tests designed to challenge their understanding of cause and effect.
The tasks were all variations of the Aesop’s fable, in which a thirsty crow drops stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher.
In the ‘water displacement task’, crows worked out how to catch floating food rewards by dropping heavy objects into water-filled tubes.
They demonstrated an ability to drop sinking rather than floating objects, solid rather than hollow objects, to choose a high water level tube over one with low water level, and a water-filled tube over one filled with sand.
The birds’ understanding of the effects of volume displacement matched that of human children aged between five and seven, scientists from the University of Auckland claimed.
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