General > Biology

Crows are pretty damn smart

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bacillus:
Not exactly the same thing, but here some magpies have found out how to get into supermarkets by fluttering their wings near the automatic door sensor. That was pretty amazing.

EricL:
I read an interesting paper a few years ago about some swallows (I think they were swallows) in England whose beak shape had evolved to better let them get into the foil wrap on milk bottles left on doorsteps.  The paper gave evidence of positive selection on beak shape for this adaptation, much along the lines of Darwin's finches and seed size.

I'm the first guy to chime in and say we tend to over estimate the difference between humans and other species when it comes to capabilities like this, but in this case I think you may be giving the crows a tad bit too much credit.  It's not at all clear this is learned behaviour.  It may very well be that selection has just favorred crows who always dig a hole and put some of their food in it when they have more than X amount.  The crows don't necesarily undestand the concept of now and later, don't undestand the concept that giving up food means more food later, at least not in the way we do.  They just do what they do because ancestors of theirs that did it had higher reproductive success then those who didn't.  I don't actually know this to be the case and I agree that crows are very smart birds, but I rather suspect it.  General purpose intelligence and/or learned behaviour is expensive compared to pre-programmed instinct.  If behanviour can be hard coded, nature tends to select for that.

The magpie behaviour may or may not be learned behavoir.  I suspect it is learned, since automatic supermarket doors just havn't been around that long and the birds already have a lot of built-in wiring to follow other birds to food or return to where there is food so I can see learning to flutter in a certan spot being something learnable for each generation.  But as with the swallows and the milk bottles above, it could be an evolved behavioural adaptation.   I wonder whether some grad student has tried the experiment: build an identical super market with doors that never open or steal eggs and raise birds with parents that don't teach that behaviour and see if it is still there...




--- Quote from: shvarz ---Have you seen the famous video of the crow that makes (sic!) a tool to reach a piece of food?  Now, that is amazing!
--- End quote ---
Wow!  Now that is pretty fricken amazing...

ikke:

--- Quote from: shvarz ---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
--- End quote ---
Didn't know this one. I saw a similar one about one of them making a barb on a twig to catch grubs.

Trafalgar:
I've seen some pretty smart behaviors in chickens, and I've seen a few dumb ones too. They never seem to have any regard for where they're pooping, so they may poop in their food or in their water if they can roost where they would poop on them. And if someone tries to grab them or they want to get out of something, they may try to run or fly through wire walls/fences, plastic mesh, or windows in an attempt to dodge. They generally won't do that if they aren't trying to get away from something, so maybe they just don't notice semi-transparent objects very well when they're panicking. Roosters also won't protect their hens from other hens (whether or not the rooster thinks they're all his).

As for smart things, if you make a habit of grabbing them to pick them up, it won't work for more than one or two times on a particular chicken, since they start staying out of reach of you after you do it the first time or two. (And they can run just as fast as a person, and they can go through shrubbery or beside trees which would slow a person down) You can try luring them over with corn or another treat, but once you've grabbed them while offering them a treat, they'll stop coming that close to you to get a treat. You can toss corn somewhere to get them to go there indefinitely, though. If you get them into an enclosed area that way and then go in there and grab them, they don't seem to associate being grabbed with the corn or the enclosed area.


--- Quote from: Numsgil ---
* The crow has to be able to understand the idea that not having food now will mean food in the future.
--- End quote ---
Or "I have enough food already, but here's more... What if I hide it so someone else is less likely to eat it?"


--- Quote from: Numsgil ---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).
--- End quote ---
Learned behaviors also appear to require a fairly tightly knit social structure in order to spread newly discovered ones.

Numsgil:

--- Quote from: EricL ---I'm the first guy to chime in and say we tend to over estimate the difference between humans and other species when it comes to capabilities like this, but in this case I think you may be giving the crows a tad bit too much credit.  It's not at all clear this is learned behaviour.  It may very well be that selection has just favorred crows who always dig a hole and put some of their food in it when they have more than X amount.  The crows don't necesarily undestand the concept of now and later, don't undestand the concept that giving up food means more food later, at least not in the way we do.  They just do what they do because ancestors of theirs that did it had higher reproductive success then those who didn't.  I don't actually know this to be the case and I agree that crows are very smart birds, but I rather suspect it.  General purpose intelligence and/or learned behaviour is expensive compared to pre-programmed instinct.  If behanviour can be hard coded, nature tends to select for that.
--- End quote ---

I could maybe buy that except for all the trouble it goes through to hide it, and the extremely short duration (<1 day usually) for them to come back to retrieve the hidden food.  It's just too short term for me to belive instinct is directing the whole affair.


--- Quote ---The magpie behaviour may or may not be learned behavoir.  I suspect it is learned, since automatic supermarket doors just havn't been around that long and the birds already have a lot of built-in wiring to follow other birds to food or return to where there is food so I can see learning to flutter in a certan spot being something learnable for each generation.  But as with the swallows and the milk bottles above, it could be an evolved behavioural adaptation.   I wonder whether some grad student has tried the experiment: build an identical super market with doors that never open or steal eggs and raise birds with parents that don't teach that behaviour and see if it is still there...
--- End quote ---

But remember that these birds are rather social.  It's not just a matter of seeing their parents do it.  Just observing another bird do something and get rewarded for it (food) is enough for them to pick up on it.


--- Quote from: Trafalgar ---
--- Quote from: Numsgil ---
* The crow has to be able to understand the idea that not having food now will mean food in the future.
--- End quote ---
Or "I have enough food already, but here's more... What if I hide it so someone else is less likely to eat it?"

--- End quote ---

Right, that's what I'm talking about.  The crow has to understand the idea that other birds have the same intentions it does (that other birds think the way it does).  As opposed to other birds just being part of its environment.  It's also not an attrition behavior, since it comes back for the food later.


--- Quote ---Learned behaviors also appear to require a fairly tightly knit social structure in order to spread newly discovered ones.
--- End quote ---

Crows are defintely social.  Sometimes I see them doing things that reminds me of elementary school children.

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