Monday, December 16, 2019

Crows Could be the Smartest Animals Other than Primates

American Crow 
Blogging has been a bit slow lately, in part because I've been busy with a lot of life things. I hope to catch up on reviews in the new month or so. Yes, I've made that promise before. In the meantime I wanted to share a really cool article from BBC. It ties in nicely with a review from 2016 of Crow Smarts by Pamela S. Turner.

Since we moved back to Central Texas I've been seeing a lot more crows. The American Crow is the "default" crow for most of North America and is closely related to Ravens (which are moving into new territories including Central Texas). There are about 40 species of crows and they are found all around the world.

One of the most interesting things in this article is the explanation of crow intelligence and how it differs from primate intelligence. New Caledonian crows, described in Turner's book, actually seek out specific plants to use as tools. Be sure to click on the video clip to see a crow working to accomplish a series of tasks. You can almost see the crow thinking through the process. Amazing! Click the link below for the BBC article.
Pied Crow, Tanzania

Crows Could be the Smartest Animals Other than Primates