Buzz
New research brings to light yet another reason to avoid angering a crow. According to a report by Gizmodo, a crow species has been found to construct tools from memory, rather than simply mimicking the actions of other crows—this further enhances the growing list of extraordinary capabilities that distinguish these intelligent birds.
In the recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports, an international research team focused on New Caledonian crows, renowned for their tool-making abilities. These crows use sticks to extract grubs from logs, often hiding the twigs for future use. Tools play such a crucial role in their lives that their beaks have even adapted to grip them. However, the precise method these crows employ to use tools—whether it’s simply copying others or acquiring knowledge across generations—has remained uncertain until now.
To conduct the experiment, the researchers trained eight crows to drop paper pieces into a box to earn food. Eventually, the birds figured out that they would be rewarded only if they dropped sheets of paper that were either 40-millimeter-by-60-millimeter large or 15-millimeter-by-25-millimeter small. After the crows adapted to using both sizes, the researchers removed all the paper and replaced it with a single sheet that was too large for the box.
The crows instinctively understood what needed to be done: They tore the sheet until it fit one of the two sizes they had previously used to get food and then inserted it into the dispenser. Remarkably, they accomplished this without looking at the sheets they had used earlier, indicating they relied on a visual memory of the tools. This supports the "mental template matching" theory—a belief held by some crow researchers that New Caledonian crows can form a mental image of a tool by observing another crow and then recreate it independently, passing on the template to other crows, including their offspring.
This marks the first instance of mental template matching being observed in birds, but for those familiar with crow intelligence, it’s no surprise: These birds have also been known to interpret traffic lights, recognize faces, hold grudges, and even conduct funerals for their deceased.
