General > Biology
Crows are pretty damn smart
Numsgil:
I was taking my daily walk from my office to the corner and back, when I saw something that amazed me:
A crow had something large in its mouth (either a bread stick or a piece of bologna or something like that), and flew in to an empty Lot. It placed the food on the ground, and proceeded to dig a small hole by ripping out a few tufts of grass. It then picked up a piece of the food, placed it in the whole, and covered it back up with the tufts of grass it had pulled out. It then took the rest of the food and dug a whole a couple of feet from the first, again by ripping up tufts of grass. And then it buried the rest of its food, again covering it back up with the tufts it had pulled out. Finished, it flew off.
I don't know if I'm just biased against non-mammals, or if most of the city birds I'm familiar with are pretty live-in-the-moment instead of thinking ahead, but it downright amazed me. Did some google searching and found this on crow food hording.
I've seen lots of interesting behaviors from the crows on my walk. Like one time where it looked like 5 or 6 birds were dive-bombing a lone crow in the field to scare him. They'd pull up at the last second, and the crow they were dive bombing was merrily ignoring all their efforts.
So I guess the moral of the story is that you should never underestimate the intelligence of "pests".
shvarz:
Maybe because I'm from Siberia, but I'm completely used to the idea that birds hoard food. There is almost no other way for wild birds to survive there.
Have you seen the famous video of the crow that makes (sic!) a tool to reach a piece of food? Now, that is amazing!
Upd: Here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtmLVP0HvDg...feature=related and more on related videos
Numsgil:
I am constantly amazed at how smart animals can be.
gymsum:
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---I was taking my daily walk from my office to the corner and back, when I saw something that amazed me:
A crow had something large in its mouth (either a bread stick or a piece of bologna or something like that), and flew in to an empty Lot. It placed the food on the ground, and proceeded to dig a small hole by ripping out a few tufts of grass. It then picked up a piece of the food, placed it in the whole, and covered it back up with the tufts of grass it had pulled out. It then took the rest of the food and dug a whole a couple of feet from the first, again by ripping up tufts of grass. And then it buried the rest of its food, again covering it back up with the tufts it had pulled out. Finished, it flew off.
I don't know if I'm just biased against non-mammals, or if most of the city birds I'm familiar with are pretty live-in-the-moment instead of thinking ahead, but it downright amazed me. Did some google searching and found this on crow food hording.
I've seen lots of interesting behaviors from the crows on my walk. Like one time where it looked like 5 or 6 birds were dive-bombing a lone crow in the field to scare him. They'd pull up at the last second, and the crow they were dive bombing was merrily ignoring all their efforts.
So I guess the moral of the story is that you should never underestimate the intelligence of "pests".
--- End quote ---
In nature nothing lacks intelligence... genes have adapted to adapt to the envrionment, the mutation thing was taken care of long ago, and development of the right instincts haev given some speices a certain amount of intelligence.
Numsgil:
But this crow behavior wasn't just instinct. It was learned. It involved thought. Think of what's involved:
* The crow has to be able to understand the idea that not having food now will mean food in the future.
* The crow has to be able to remember where it put the food.
* The crow understands that other animals might want its food, and so it puts effort in to hiding it from others by camouflaging it. This means it can place itself in the mind of other birds/animals, and gauge intention.
* The crow understands the idea that the ground it removes to make a hole can be put back in to the hole and it's no longer a hole. That is, it isn't just covering the hole, its using the stuff it removed to make the hole to help camouflage it.
Instincts can be amazing, too, but they're preprogrammed responses that have developed over millions of years. Learned behaviors have to be relearned during each individual's life, making them much more impressive (several million years vs. a few years).
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version