
Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates - hhs
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191211-crows-could-be-the-smartest-animal-other-than-primates
======
dta3456
When I was a child, I'd spend a lot of time at my grandfathers farm, and one
summer he took in an injured crow that hurt its wing.

For some strange reason, he named all of his animals Jack, cats, dogs and now
crows. So we'd go out in the morning and my grandfather would call out "Jack"
and the Dog would come running down the yard, and then next thing you'd see
the crow hopping down the yard after the dog. It would arrive and wait for him
to pick it up with his hand and it would sit on his shoulder while he fed it
nuts and seeds. Jack the dog and Jack the crow would also hang out together
and play. It also would be very wary of other visitors and knew to leave the
house if it was going to go to the toilet.

This went on for maybe a full year until it decided to just fly off, but
throughout that time it really opened my eyes to how smart animals could
actually be, and is a really fond memory of mine.

~~~
dbingham
Crows also have vocal chords capable of producing human language, and -
similar to parrots - they can learn human phrases in the right conditions.

My partner used to volunteer at the local Wildcare and they had an injured
crow resident that they couldn't release named Da Vinci. Da Vinci would always
greet visitors with "Hello! How are you? How are you?"

~~~
sutterbomb
I was staying in a hostel in the Philippines and they had a pet crow that
would greet you, but he'd also fuck with you - or at least me. He'd say "Come
here" over and over until I went over to him, then he'd turn away from me when
I got there. As soon as I turned back away he'd say "come here" again. Funny
little shit.

------
burtonator
Crows are amazingly intelligent animals.

My GF and I went to the beach about a month ago and took our dog.

The crows weren't frightened at ALL of our dog. They realized they could
basically just 'float' up in the air when he came by using the breeze.

The fact that they were amazingly calm about it was really telling.

Second. We hid our stuff under a blanket. They realize it's still there as
they have item persistence. So they lifted up the blanket, went into our bag,
then started opening up everything.

They opened up lids. They went through my girlfriends purse. They took out all
the items from her purse. They took the socks out of my shoes. They opened
plastic containers.

They systematically went through all our belongings.

And BOY did they score. All our dogfood. All of our leftover lunch, etc.

~~~
duelingjello
Yeap. Food and valuables have to be toddler-proofed around crows. They can
also steal your wallet or your keys if you leave them unsecured.

And, damn, they're as good as human thieves at reading situations for
opportunism.

~~~
state_less
I was in Nepal having breakfast. Some crows are sitting there watching me eat.
I look down to read my book, and in not more than a few seconds, I hear the
clinking of dishes. I look up and the crows are flying off with my toast and
jam. It was right in front of me, but they were quick enough to get in and out
before I could react.

I realized that they are probably aware of my lack of attention to my food and
that their in-built modeling of other agents had given them an advantage in
this situation. I thought it was pretty impressive.

~~~
ethbro
I sat and watched a raven (majestic and BIG, if you've never seen one) at
Yellowstone Park for a few minutes.

It was a big parking lot outside the gift shop, and some visitor had parked
his motorcycle there. Pannier bags on the back.

The raven was sitting on one bag, actively working the zipper open. About a
foot of zipper.

Which is pretty impressive, but the more impressive thing was _how_.

It would worry it for a couple seconds, tugging it a bit farther open, then
stop, lift its head, and evaluate its surroundings.

If it didn't see anyone nearby, again with the zipper.

... I gained a new level of respect for corvids that day.

~~~
type0
Speaking of corvids. Magpies are ones of the more social birds, I'm always
amazed how vocal and varied their communications are. You could teach them to
speak simple phrases. They can engage in gang violence (especially between two
groups of juveniles). Magpies can establish "friendship" with crows if it
helps them scavenge food.

------
SiVal
We have crows and jackrabbits in our neighborhood. You drive down the road
toward a bunch (I think they prefer the term "murder") of crows having a
meeting in the middle of the road. They'll eventually start nonchalantly
strolling to the side at a calm, measured pace perfectly timed to just barely
get out of the way as you pass and stroll back again, no feathers ruffled.

Jackrabbits will be sitting safely in the grass on the side of the road, see
you coming, watch until you're about to pass, have a panic attack, and sprint
in front of your car just as you pass in order to "escape". I never slow down
for crows. They know what they're doing. I slow down for my fellow mammals,
jackrabbits, because they're nitwits. All I can say, looking at these birds
and these rabbits, is: that asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and took out
the competition sure was a lucky break for us.

~~~
seszett
To be fair though, birds have had to adapt long ago to evaluating the movement
of very fast moving objects, while rabbits and most mammals have not really
had to cope with fast speeds until humans invented cars just a century ago.

~~~
classified
Are you forgetting the birds of prey?

~~~
DagAgren
Where I live, an island right by the mainland, birds of prey are not allowed.
If one shows up, the crows will all take to the air, maybe fifty to a hundred
of them, and will yell and chase the bird of prey until it leaves the island.
Once it is over water, they will give a few last screams and turn around and
go back to their business.

I've seen a bird of prey try to dive and swoop low over the land to evade
them. They'll follow, some diving down low after it and some at a distance to
keep an eye on it, until it's gone.

We basically have a crow air force keeping all the other birds and little
mammals safe.

~~~
rapnie
There are many bird species that do the same. Last year in Rotterdam,
Netherlands they released a trained American bald eagle from a highrise
building to fly to a designated spot across the river. It never arrived there
as it was attacked from all sides by other birds, mostly seagulls, and chased
across the city. It took hours to find the eagle, and when they did the poor
beast was exhausted.

~~~
orthoxerox
Well, a bald eagle is a glorified seagull, a golden eagle would've fared
better.

------
mrtksn
Previously I heard about crows in Japan leaving nuts on the way of the cars to
crash them when traffic lights are red and collecting them the next cycle.
This summer I witnessed the exact same thing when I was driving through a
particularly jammy traffic light here in Europe.

Are these crows inventing the method over and over again independently, like
scientists finding the same thing at the same time in different parts of the
world? Is this some very basic instinct that the crows evolved into? Are they
teaching each other and now the Euro crows using Japanise tech? Fascinating
creatures.

~~~
csomar
I wonder if what makes humans "intelligent" is exactly this. Plus we have a
70-90 years of life. Which is long enough to learn and do stuff, compare that
to 10-15 years for your average crow.

We start bombarding babies with information since a very early age. Parents,
are incentivized to teach their babies how to talk, walk, read, write, do
stuff, eat, sing, etc... The amount of cognitive exercise is insane. And a
human will only be able to "say" something useful until he is 7-8 year old.
He's kinda of a "retard" before that. That's 7-8 years of training just to get
started.

Then humans get bombarded with education: Math, Physics, Language, Writing,
Sports, etc... And they are a strict about going to school and performing
well. That would take another 12-15 years of your life to, hopefully, learn
something useful to society. Add to that 3-4 years of learning in the job, and
a human is only able to bring food to the table after 25-26 years of learning
and training.

That's a hell lot of time. No other animals in the wild are given this chance.
Let alone their environments and their physical capacities are taken into
consideration. We judge animal intelligence by comparing it to our self-
architectured modern environment.

tl;dr: Humans might not be smart after all. It might be that we have been
lucky that our ancestors have started the ball rolling and we have had enough
time during our lifetime to make up for the initial investment of learning.

~~~
filoleg
Sounds like a good theory, until you think about animals like parrots and
turtles. Both of those have lifespans that are about as long as that of
humans, and no doubt they are very intelligent (esp. pronounced with parrots),
but not smart enough to be able to support your hypothesis.

~~~
csomar
How so? My hypothesis is that if a human is not exposed to this curricula of
learning, he'll be close to these animals in intelligence. I don't know of any
such humans. I also don't know of any such parrot that was given a learning
program for 25 years.

------
tannhaeuser
Crows are known to give "presents" to humans they like, such as dropping small
pieces of metal they picked up, or worms. Also, crows have very rich tribal
behaviours going on. There's a town close to mine called Husum (in North
Germany) where there's a multi-year battle going on between crows in the park.
You immediately notice it by the noise, and in fact by dead crows lying on the
ground.

~~~
eps
Cats tend to bring gifts too.

My grandmother used to receive that of dead moles, freshly caught mice and
what have you, invariably placed dead center on her pillow. She wasn't a fan
of that cat before, and she didn't like it much better after. No idea why.

~~~
elhudy
Cats are responsible for killing up to 25 billion animals annually and have
directly contributed to the extinction of at least 33 different species.

Growing up our family cat brought us a constant stream of rabbits, birds, and
moles. It is actually a problem that nobody talks about, because cats are
cute.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife)

~~~
drakonka
To me it seems like everybody talks about it. I've lived in the US, Australia,
and now Sweden, and almost everyone seems to have some sort of awareness of
and opinion on this issue.

------
netcan
It's fascinating that intelligence exists in different clades & phylum of
animals: crows, octopus, apes etc. It suggests intelligence is not very
progressive, in evolution. It advances & recedes, and evolution can find
multiple paths to it from various starting point. It doesn't take a mammalian
brain.

Who know what other animal intelligence exists today, or in the past.

The current crop of species (us excepted) may not be the smartest to have
existed, problem solving intelligence like the crow's could have existed 500
mya as easily as it can now. You don't need mammals, or even necessarily
vertebrates.

The first thing I found fascinating in YNH's "Sapiens" was his "start of
history" debate. When did people start _really_ standing out from the faunal
crowd. He puts this at just around 40 kya.

That is, people were walking around with modern sized & equipped brain
hardware for hundreds of thousands of years. They were obviously extremely
intelligent. They would have performed as well as us on such intelligence
tests.

If sapiens had gone extinct before 40kya, they would have left no indication
that their intelligence such potential that it did. They would have just been
a smart animal.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above
the crow level, but maybe not by much.

What makes us special is persistent collective learning and abstract
communication.

Unlike animals, generations of humans don't have to keep re-solving the same
problems. As a species we have cumulative persistent memory for techniques and
abstractions. That's the real game changer.

But it took a surprisingly long time - tens of thousands of years - for our
brains to make this ability central to culture. And there's no guarantee that
if we re-ran history we'd do it again on the same scale.

~~~
jancsika
> A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate
> above the crow level, but maybe not by much.

That's such a misanthropic statement I don't even know where to begin.

Just sticking to the kinds of structures a human and a crow can build in the
wild, it's still obvious to the untrained observer that the human is well
beyond the crow in terms of intelligence.

~~~
joshowar
What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a
house, or hut, or lean-to? Think you'd just arrive at these ideas on your own?
Think you'd even consider building your own at all? Or would you just keep
walking until you found a cave?

We depend more on our collective intelligence and teachings than you think.

~~~
jancsika
> What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a
> house, or hut, or lean-to?

For an instructive example-- a crow's nest of sticks, leaves, etc. Especially
if that human comes up happens to come upon a crow's nest in the wild. Notice
that the human can probably scale that design to fit their own larger stature.

Now imagine a crow coming upon a little 1x1 dugout crawdad battle arena, or a
little lattice-structure of sticks that encloses a caddisfly larva collection
of a 9 year old. If you saw a crow observe and then build that you'd have
quite a research paper on your hands.

But we're probably going to get stuck in physical differences so let's change
the subject and just give both animals a stick.

One of them uses it to extract a morsel of food from a hard to reach area.

The other uses it to mark time according to either the moon cycle or possibly
something else that lasts that long. I.e., this animal has created a calendar.

Using historical evidence please tell me which animal performed which feat?

The thing is-- I really do find the intelligence of crows fascinating! I just
don't get the desire to pair that with the "human's aren't such hot shit"
trope.

~~~
s1artibartfast
I think you are making of conflating how a socially raised human would behave
in the the wild with how a feral human would behave. Despite nearly 8 billion
people on Earth, we have very little data on human cognitive development when
isolated from other humans.

------
arketyp
Birds' intelligence is especially interesting because the ontogeny differs
from that of primates and other mammals like the dolphins. Maybe it can help
triangulate our views about intelligence and give parallax insight into what
general intelligence is and what to expect of AI without resorting to
anthropocentric Turing test arguments only.

~~~
mettamage
cephlapods, primates, crows. I wonder if someone studied all three.

~~~
comboy
wonder no more
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%2Bc...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%2Bcephalopods%2C+%2Bprimates%2C+%2Bcrows&btnG=)

------
Ididntdothis
They also like to annoy other animals. I have seen it now a few times that a
crow or a group of crows would approach a dog from behind and nip their tail
or butt. When the dog turns around the crow will jump back a little and
pretend it has nothing to do with this. When the dog looks away they will do
it again. I have seen similar behavior with swans. When my dog chases they get
out of the way but only the minimum needed.

Very smart but obnoxious in a way.

Just found this on YouTube:
[https://youtu.be/Y0xwX5iOFok](https://youtu.be/Y0xwX5iOFok)

~~~
praptak
They also do this to cats, which is much more dangerous. There's a video with
a cat catching a bird (not a crow) that did this:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=nfIQifAcm0g](https://youtube.com/watch?v=nfIQifAcm0g)

~~~
tempguy9999
I think that's different. I'd guess the cat was unknowningly getting near the
bird's nest + kids so mother was panicking.

~~~
praptak
In that case, yes. It was just to illustrate that cats are eerily effective at
catching birds mid-flight.

But I have seen a cat trotting along a wire fence with a concrete base. On
that base, which was about the cat's height there was a hooded crow happily
scuttering behind the cat and grabbing at its tail from time to time.

The cat mostly ignored it but it was apparent that it judges the chances of
catching the pesky bird.

------
rkagerer
The "Just for Fun" link[1] leads to some entertaining videos:

Skiing down a roof:
[https://youtu.be/1WupH8oyrAo](https://youtu.be/1WupH8oyrAo)

My girlfriend's spirit animal: [https://youtu.be/Qt-
pB1R64mI](https://youtu.be/Qt-pB1R64mI)

Teaming up to provoke a catfight:
[https://youtu.be/WQd9kuXpUYU](https://youtu.be/WQd9kuXpUYU)

Nipping a sausage:
[https://youtu.be/Y0xwX5iOFok](https://youtu.be/Y0xwX5iOFok)

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/scientists-
investiga...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/scientists-investigate-
why-crows-are-so-playful/)

------
harimau777
Not directly related, but some other bird behaviors that I find fascinating:

Shrike (A.K.A. butcher birds) are predatory but since they are song birds they
don't have talons to rip apart prey into manageable bites. Instead they impale
their pray on thorns or barbed wire so that they can tear off bits with their
beaks. They also use this to store food and have been known to use this to
wait until the poison in certain insects degrades. During mating season, the
number of carcasses that a male shrike has hung up is used to demonstrate its
fitness to females.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpRcc5jvRmQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpRcc5jvRmQ)

Killdeer nest on the ground, so when a predator approaches the nest the mother
attempts to lead them away by pretending to have a broken wing.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJTt5I8K4Rk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJTt5I8K4Rk)

~~~
yawgmoth
Shrike birds always remind me of the Shrike from Hyperion [1]. I guess the
real thing inspired the character's thorny exterior.

[1]
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hyperion+shrike&ia=images&iax=imag...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hyperion+shrike&ia=images&iax=images)

~~~
npongratz
The thorny exterior, as well as the character's propensity for impaling its
victims on the Tree of Thorns and letting them hang there for eternity.

------
ralf07
Once I was sitting on a bench under a walnut tree and a walnut fell to the
pavement near me and got cracked. I thought it fell from the tree and picked
it up and ate it. Suddenly a crow appeared and started screaming and flying
around me. I suspect the walnut didn't drop from a tree but it was the crow
who throw it to crack it open. I said sorry, but it kept cursing :(, so I
quickly left.

------
paozac
It's very difficult to tell which is the smartest animal - or whether an
animal is intelligent or not - because intelligence is a broad concept and
there are many kinds of intelligence.

If you're interested in this topic a good book is "Are We Smart Enough to Know
How Smart Animals Are?", by Frans de Waal.

~~~
defined
I highly recommend that book!

------
duelingjello
Crows are social too, will hold a grudge... you's swear they were part Irish.

A crow once sneaked quite far into my mechanic's shop without being seen, got
up on a rolling toolbox and stole a bag of sunflower seeds without being
noticed. I found this because I saw a crow and their other crow buddies were
having a sunflower seed party in the alley, and one of the mechanics lost
their snack.

Also, crows will remember if you help them for years. People make a point to
make friends with them because they have been known to bring gifts and visit
year after year. Probably better company than the in-laws too. There's a
number of documentaries and personal videos on YouTube about this topic.

PS: Davis CA has zillions of crows. An apartment I rented had large trees at
the street containing easily several thousand in a dozen trees where they
bedded-down for the night. The sidewalks and streets were coated white with
droppings like it was SF's Fisherman's Wharf. Needless to say, no one used
those sidewalks. And you could hear when they came back, because it sounded
like a crow cocktail party.

------
gullywhumper
Here's another article about crow intelligence and crows in Seattle [1]. Some
interesting topics from the article include crows have 'funerals', they can
recognize individual humans, individual crows commute to the same specific
areas during the day to forage and return to concentrated roosts with other
crows at end of the day.

Living in Minneapolis with a home office overlooking the Mississippi River,
I've noticed crows commuting in the darker, colder months. Hundreds of them at
a time go up river in the morning, just as it's getting light, and then return
down river before the sun sets. It's fun to watch.

[1] [https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2017/5/17/the-secret-
lif...](https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2017/5/17/the-secret-life-of-
urban-crows)

~~~
rotexo
In the East San Francisco bay area, I have observed that the crows behave in
an incredibly habitual fashion. Every evening, huge crowds of them gather near
Lake Merritt in Oakland. I see them streaming over my apartment in Berkeley a
little before dusk. Some contingent flies north over my apartment around dawn.
It seems like they disperse to forage during the day. I really wish I knew how
they decided who gets what turf during the day. Do they select where they are
going based on where their friends will be?

~~~
Sharlin
> It seems like they disperse to forage during the day.

This is exactly what they do. They roost communally, with well-defined and
enforced social hierarchies even in flocks hundreds of birds strong.

------
CRUDite
They know how to use glass. We had a rooftop area enclosed by glass and the
crows would frequently corral pigeons there and kill them, either directly
pecking them or indirectly chasing them into the glass. They may know how to
use it, but what is it? This is another question..One morning i heard clicking
/ tapping coming from upstairs near this roof top; up the stairs i went, i
peered over the top of the stairs toward the door to the rooftop, and saw two
of them tapping the glass, then looking at each other, then tapping the glass
again. They saw me and flew off in a panic. I may be anthropomorphising but it
sure did look like they were sizing up this wonder material between them! I
felt like i had seen a window into their world in that moment before i was
spotted.

------
jktj
[https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/revengeful-crows-
refus...](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/revengeful-crows-refuse-to-
forgive-mp-man-after-death-of-chick-3-years-ago-1594753-2019-09-03) "Shiva
Kewat, resident of a village in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri has been a target of
a murder of crows that remembers him for causing the death of a chick."

------
User23
Country folk assure me that crows can also not only tell the difference
between a gun and a stick, but they also have a pretty good idea of what the
effective range of the gun is.

~~~
blattimwind
"What are you gonna do with that .22 pistol, human? Shoot me? At 40 yards?
kra-kra-kra!"

~~~
technothrasher
That crow is a little over confident. 40 yards isn't all that hard on a crow
size target with at .22 pistol, with practice. Back up about another 20 yards
and the crow is probably pretty safe.

~~~
blattimwind
Crow of course knows how good (or rather, the opposite) of a shot the farmer
is.

------
b0rsuk
I heard an interesting theory about intelligence while watching a documentary
about jumping spiders.

Good eyesight tends to evolve first. In the case of jumping spiders, it was
vital for safe landing. As a consequence, jumping spiders have the best
eyesight among spiders. Anyway, initially brain gets a lot of extra
information but is unable to take advantage of all of it. It's just for safe
landing. Then those animals that find way to exploit the extra data become
more effective.

Jumping spiders are devious, for example they can lure prey by mimicking
gestures the insect uses.

~~~
saiya-jin
In latest BBC seven worlds one planet, there is nice display of their mating
dance... fascinating little buggers (like all other animals on the show, small
and big)

------
fyfy18
I remember a few months ago I saw some crows in a park. They were going
through a bin and pulling out McDonalds paper bags, and ripping them apart to
see if there was anything inside.

Whenever someone came near they would move away from the bin and started
looking around aimlessly, as if to say "there's nothing going on here".

------
john111
I really wish we had better definitions for "smart", "cognition", and
"intelligence." With our current definitions, all comparisons are purely
subjective. Maybe crows are the "smartest" today. Tomorrow it'll be dolphins,
parrots, elephants, pigs, or cephalopods. Who knows?

~~~
ralusek
I mean, there are pretty objective things to test for.

Object permanence.

How many things can they keep in working memory?

How many steps can they work through linearly to an objective?

How many dependent elements of a puzzle can be branched off for a single step?

Can they understand symbols as being representative of objects? Of verbs?
Adjectives?

Can they understand counting, grouping?

Can they extrapolate solutions from one puzzle to another? How dissimilar can
they appear for them to still recognize patterns?

Are they creative? Are they social?

~~~
Razengan
One overriding question may be: Do they _need_ to?

There are things that other animals can do which humans can't, such as an
octopus communicating with a grouper fish, two entirely different species, by
changing the color and patterns of their skin, to corral and trap a prey (as
seen on a segment of BBC's Blue Planet.)

Are humans "dumber" if we use that objective criteria to compare intelligence?

~~~
dahdum
> Are humans "dumber" if we use that objective criteria to compare
> intelligence?

We have advanced communication with our domesticated animals, especially dogs.
Also have some communication with non domesticated animals like primates,
dolphins, etc..

------
mcv
Does the title really fit the article? The article discusses how smart crows
are. It doesn't compare them in any way to other smart non-primates like
elephants, cetaceans and cephalopods. Of course their tool use is a pretty big
deal, but it's not the only aspect of intelligence. Squids have shown to be
amazing problem solvers too.

By the way, a while back I read that the tool-using crows of New Caledonia had
their eyes more to the front than other crows, and someone used that to
discover that another group of crows (on Hawaii I think) also used tools.

(edit: rephrased the last bit to make it more clear)

~~~
gerbilly
> a group of crows (on Hawaii I think) also used tools.

You're thinking of the New Caledonian crows.

[https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/00000161-1f5...](https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/00000161-1f56-d972-a3ff-
dfde7b1d0000)

~~~
mcv
The New Caledonian crows are the original group of tool using crows that's
already widely publicised. The more recently discovered group is indeed from
Hawaii.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/this-
cro...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/this-crow-nearly-
died-out-before-we-knew-it-uses-tools/499724/)

------
twoflower9
When I was a kid a crow got it's head stuck in our gate. I ran and got my dad
who got it free. For the next ten years the crows would attack magpies
whenever they tried to swoop me in our street.

------
danmostudco
Crows are astoundingly intelligent. If you're having a slow day, a quick
youtube of "crows solving puzzles" yields some great videos of them solving
complicated tasks like water displacement to reach food[0]. I believe raccoons
share this achievement.

Additionally, there was a thread on here some time ago[1] by a Dutch
Startup[2] about trying to teach crows to exchange cigarette butts for treats
inside a tiny device place in parks, I always thought that was a funny idea if
you could get the crows to teach one another.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486368)

[2] [http://www.thecrowbox.com/](http://www.thecrowbox.com/)

------
nickjj
I was playing golf once and was standing around eating lunch next to my golf
cart with a friend.

A crow swooped in, perched itself on the steering wheel of the golf cart,
evaluated there was no food there but then took my wallet and flew away. I
chased it for like 200 feet and it dropped my wallet ~5 feet from a large body
of water, looked at me and flew away.

I'm pretty sure it did that out of spite for not feeding him.

------
ChuckMcM
Easiest animal the general public can interact with. In my area they will
really try to do what you want, if they can figure it out, for cashews :-).

I have tried different ways to train them to bring me hobby drones or their
parts. I figured it would make for a cheap defense against random drone
surveillance.

------
pmoriarty
This article focuses mostly on problem solving, planning, and tool use as the
primary hallmarks of intelligence. But what problem does writing a poem solve?
Do you have to be intelligent to write a great poem? What about the
intelligence need to compose a great whale song[1]? Or paint a great painting?

These are things not measured on intelligence tests and that don't fit well in
to scientific experiments because they can't be "objectively" judged or
quantified, but my intuition is that they do in fact have to do with
intelligence -- just not the sort of intelligence that problem solving,
planning, and tool use demonstrate. Though they may require problem solving,
planning, or tool use to accomplish, there seems to be something else going on
there.

I'm reminded of the Douglas Adams quote: _"... on the planet Earth, man had
always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
achieved so much--the wheel, New York, wars and so on--whilst all the dolphins
had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely,
the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man
--for precisely the same reasons."_

[1] - ...if such criteria could be applied to them -- we don't know, and
that's part of the point. If we don't know how can we judge one animal who
does one thing to be "smarter" than another who does something else?

~~~
Tepix
Early humans didn't have poetry. Were they not intelligent?

~~~
dilippkumar
>Early humans didn't have poetry.

[Citation Needed]

~~~
Tepix
OK so speech has begun 100,000 years ago (perhaps earlier). My point stands:
Would humans without poetry not be considered intelligent? Hardly.

~~~
n0rbwah
I didn't know we had any idea when speech started or even what form of proto-
speech preceded and when it could be said it evolved to speech.

Homo Erectus emerged 2 millions years ago, I'm not aware of anything that says
speech couldn't have started during his reign.

Do you have any source for that 100,000 years figure?

~~~
wruza
That’s a well known story. Speech beyond mooing means complex bones and
muscles working together.

[https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/could-
neandert...](https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/could-neanderthals-
speak-the-ongoing-debate-over-neanderthal-language)

~~~
n0rbwah
All I take from this article is that there's no consensus among experts
whether speech was possible for homo sapiens' ancestors.

> Based on these results, most researchers agree Neanderthals were capable of
> emitting and hearing complex vocalizations. However, they disagree over the
> implications. While some consider the findings indicative of speech-based
> language in Neanderthals, others propose these features could have evolved
> for other reasons, like singing. Neanderthals may have lacked the cognitive
> abilities for language, but possessed the physical anatomy for musical calls
> to attract mates or sooth infants.

Seems to imply that speech was physically possible for neanderthals (and by
extension, their common ancestor with homo sapiens), but there's no agreement
among experts that it means that neanderthals did speak.

------
codeduck
A pet crow is one of the most rewarding relationships you can experience.

Nothing will teach you powerlessness like the friendly, loving malevolence of
a corvid.

~~~
rootbear
I need that last sentence on a T-shirt. Bravo!

------
b0rsuk
A bit off-topic: it's not just intelligence that's amazing about (some) birds.

I highly recommend the book "The wonder of birds" by Jim Robbins. One of the
earliest insights in the book is that birds are the dinosaurs that survived.
They are amazingly adapted.

The unusual thing is that each chapter is full of intriguing information and
each one is a different topic.

Like, how could birds possibly evolve wings? A wing is only useful if it's a
working wing, and if a bird evolved half a wing it would be pointless, right?
It turns out half a wing is useful. It speeds up running birds, especially up
a slope.

Feathers actually grow outside first, and the stem last.

The amazing efficiency and optimization of their hearts and respiratory
systems.

Bird guano used to be so valuable that Incas punished bird killers with death.
Natural fertilizers are very important if you try to make the most of poor
mountainous soil.

------
guru4consulting
In Southern parts of India (at least in Tamilnadu state), there are lots of
rituals involving crows. It's very common to see people calling crows (giving
the cawing sound) and feeding them food on Saturdays. It is also believed that
when people die, their soul supposedly comes back to visit the family as a
crow, hence they feed the crows especially on the death anniversaries of
family members. When visitors come to your home, the crows often inform the
residents well ahead by cawing in-front of the home. I used to make fun of my
Mom for believing in all such random events, saying crows are just stupid
birds habituated to getting fed by humans and don't remember anything. Now
that I see that crows can be smarter, I could have been wrong.

------
musiccog
We made friends with a lorikeet (parrot) we named 'Percy' 11 years ago, our
first one. Him and his 'wife' (we named her 'Cruella' for obvious reasons)
stayed with him for years. We then have had - and contining now - years of
their offspring. Names are hard to find with so many offspring - But 'Buttons'
is Percys' great-grand son, and is still here today with us. When I moved in
15 years ago, there was none of this. Now, we have a grand colalition of
Magpies (corvids), Lorikeets and King Parrots that protect each other, and
keep us busy if not entertained every day.

------
arooaroo
I know someone who works at one of the London airports and is responsible for
keeping the runway operational. One of the jobs is keeping the birds well
clear, and if necessary, sadly, may resort to shooting.

The crows know the score though. This acquiantance says the crows know to
disappear if they see the bird clearers. What's "clever" is that they only
take flight if it's one of the shooters. They recognise the veichle(s) despite
them being all the same fleet. So if someone else is driving round to check
something else, the birds completely ignore. If it's the "bird guy" then off
they go with little encouragement.

------
edoo
There are also videos on youtube of crows that learned to wait for the walk
signal to walk into a crosswalk to drop off a hard nut shell that car tires
then crush and they then walk back out to pick up the now exposed food.

~~~
riffraff
I've seen crows do this on my own neighborhood, both on side streets with
little traffic, and on main streets on the crosswalk. I had heard of crows
doing this in Japan but was impressed to see this in central Europe (although
it's corvus cornix, the grey-black kind, not the full black one)

------
MrsPeaches
This is a great Ted talk about crows and how their intelligence differs from
that of other animals.

Lots of other comments talking about crows using cars to crack nuts. In this
talk, he traces the behaviour to a driving school on the or skirts of Tokyo.
The behaviour then spread across Tokyo.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_a_thought_experiment_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_a_thought_experiment_on_the_intelligence_of_crows/up-
next)

------
stevewilhelm
We also focus on the abilities of an individual.

There can be a fair amount of complex behavior of groups. Ants and plants for
example

[http://web.stanford.edu/~dmgordon/](http://web.stanford.edu/~dmgordon/)
[https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/09/26/the-
intellige...](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/09/26/the-intelligence-
of-plants/)

------
etxm
If you haven’t seen the CrowBox, a vending machine for crows, it’s pretty
cool.

[http://www.thecrowbox.com/](http://www.thecrowbox.com/)

------
jboy55
In highschool I worked at a pet food store, around 1pm everyday someone would
drive behind our store dropping pet food to feed the crows. A neighbour
thought we were doing it and was really upset, telling us they hated the crows
and all the noise they made.

Anyhow, a week or two later, I heard all the crows in the back and heard a
loud 'bang'. I thought the neighbour had grabbed a shotgun and shot a crow, so
I went out back to investigate. After looking around I saw that a crow laid
dead next to a power transformer up on a telephone pole.

At first there was one other crow cawing loudly. Then more and more crows
showed up. They took turns flying up and pecking at the dead crow. Within an
hour, there was probably 100 crows, in all the trees, powerlines and on
apartment buildings nearby. It really impressed on me how social crows were,
obviously the 'caw'ing was such that it called all the crows, and crows much
have told other crows as well. You could almost say they were mourning the
crow or perhaps learning how this one crow died.

It would be really interesting examining the communication patterns of crows,
they have such control over their voice, they must be able to do some complex
communication.

------
Arn_Thor
I read that as "cows" and thought "I never woulda guessed, but suppose it
makes sense". I think it's time to call it a day

~~~
archi42
Yeah, though cows are probably not completely dumb, either (maybe less
intelligent than crows, but who am I to judge?). This one enjoys playing with
a huge ball: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx-
CxuAeVPo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx-CxuAeVPo)

Maybe they just seem dumb because they're usually bored to death standing on
the grass with nothing to do but eat?

------
bloak
What amazes me about crows is the intelligence they achieve with such a small
brain. That elephants and whales are highly intelligent is perhaps less
impressive.

I can't think of any reasonable way to compare the intelligence of a whale
with the intelligence of a crow. It's hard enough to compare the intelligence
of two humans when they have different personalities and interests.

------
cwkoss
When I lived in a second floor apartment, I trained the crows to sit on a
particular spot of the fence below my balcony.

First, I would just throw nuts for them (they liked cashews best). Then, I
gradually shaped their behavior by only throwing nuts when they were standing
on then fence, then eventually only when they were standing on a particular
spot of the fence.

Took about 3 months, was pretty fun.

Then, they started cawing to ask for nuts. They were in the right spot, why
wasn't I coming out onto the balcony to give nuts? Had to ignore them for a
while to avoid reinforcing their habit of demanding. Crows have no concept of
weekend mornings being sacred sleep-in time and I didn't want to piss off the
neighbors.

I'd like to train crows again, but I'm not sure of a good way to avoid them
becoming demanding again. Also, they were much more comfortable picking up
nuts when I was stuck on balcony, they seem fairly wary when offered food on
the same level as a human.

------
methehack
I remember this story from a few years ago: "the girl who gets gifts from
birds"

[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026)

Searching for the story just now, I came across this:
[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/northwest/lawsuit-...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/northwest/lawsuit-against-seattle-crow-feeding-family-settled/)

Apparently they were sued by neighbors for encouraging wild life or something.

What an odd pair of stories. One so uplifting; the other a downer from the
opposite perspective. Zeitgeisty!

~~~
dang
The upper was discussed here in 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9112145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9112145)

------
newshorts
I kidnapped a baby crow thinking it was injured. My neighbor helped me capture
it as the crow parents were honking at us from the trees.

At the animal clinic, i learned it couldn’t fly because it was a baby, not due
to an injury, so i offered to reunite it with its parents.

The minute i released the baby, the parents flew over and started barking. It
seemed almost like they were trying to guide the baby away from me.

For the rest of the summer the crows would yell at my neighbor and I if they
saw us.

That fall, I was walking my newborn outside and was dive bombed by one of the
crows. I got the sense it was payback for kidnapping the baby crow.

They hold grudges.

------
Lammy
I love crows enough to put up with it, but it's sad that this page shows the
header, the footer, and a giant sea of empty whitespace where the article
should be until I allow Javascript from `bbcverticals.com`

------
ssijak
At my parents house crows pickup wallnuts, then fly to some altitude and drop
them on the concrete to break them and eat them. Only problem is the dog who
waits for them to drop the walnuts and eat them himself.

------
AdmiralAsshat
For more on crows' ability to remember human faces, see:

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/09/bird-brains-crows-
re...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/09/bird-brains-crows-remember-
your-face-and-know-youre-hiding-in-there/)

NOTE: I can't find confirmation in the article or in the referenced study, but
I could've _sworn_ when I initially heard this story years ago, the
"threatening" mask worn was a Nixon mask. Perhaps that was a later
embellishment.

------
ivanhoe
As a kid I loved watching hooded crows breaking snails' shells by picking up a
snail, flying a 10 or so feet up into the air and then throwing the snail
against a narrow stone path in the park. I've never seen even one crow making
a mistake to throw a snail on the soft grass on either side of the path, they
would aways carefully aim for the snail to hit the hard surface - which means
it wasn't just an act of imitation, each of them perfectly understood the idea
behind what they were doing.

------
bshanks
The article mentions that corvids don't have a "neocortex", which is true,
however many believe that there is a part of avian brains which is their
version of neocortex (see e.g.
[https://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3184](https://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3184)
). So it's possible that the neural architecture of their intelligence is
somewhat similar to ours after all.

------
rkagerer
Story of a crow who adopted a kitten and nursed it back to health:
[https://youtu.be/inbPgr8IMlM](https://youtu.be/inbPgr8IMlM)

------
Gupie
A couple of years ago we were holidaying in Kent, UK, and went for a walk on
the South Downs. There was a guy in a hide shooting crows. He was at the edge
of a field and had put some sort of lure in the middle of the field. Crows
would fly down and he would shoot them. There were thirty or so dead birds
grouped around the lure, but the crows continued to fly down, and continued to
get shot. This makes me think that crow intelligence is as it were not
general.

~~~
ModernMech
We need to put signs next to cliffs to remind people not to fall to their
deaths while taking photos of themselves. Let's not pretend humans aren't
incredibly stupid animals at times as well.

------
danschumann
I like to think about what would happen on a planet where the most intelligent
species wasn't from a primate, but another animal. Can you imagine the
societal nuances that a planet of human-level-intelligent crows? What kind of
sitcoms they'd have? I mean most tv revolves around sex.. so having eggs and
nests would change all their social taboos. How different would "Sex and the
City" be if it was crows? So crazy.

------
imvetri
Watch and learn. - All animals are good at it. Man made world - A smart mans
survival strategy so that he can sit back and relax for his future. But,
another criminal monkey looks and thinks "Oh I can make money out of it"

Creates life hard for other human beings.

Whats survival in this man's world - "Learn what other human had created,
because whole crowd is following."

wait a minute. Crows smarter than humans? Of course they are. They dont load
bullshit in their head.

------
Todd
I was recently reading the Wikipedia page about comparative neuron counts in
the brains of various animals. The most notable observation to me at the time
was that ravens have a similar neuron count that of to pigs and dogs--far more
than cats, for example.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons)

~~~
raverbashing
It seems neuron counts matter, but at the same time they don't have a big
effect?

Elephants are intelligent but not that much per the number of cells. Raccons
are probably more intelligent than cats and have more neurons, ok. And why are
Capybaras surprisingly high on the list?

~~~
wahern
This author seems a little too eager to attribute exceptional behavior, but
they provide some interesting anecdotes and videos about capybara behavior:
[https://capybaraworld.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/theory-of-
min...](https://capybaraworld.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/theory-of-mind-
capybara-intelligence/)

------
PopeDotNinja
I just went on a Game of Thrones tour yesterday in Belfast, Northern Ireland
(corny as heck, but fun if you enjoyed the show). I learned that they used
trained ravens during the filming. One of the things they taught the ravens to
do was simply hover over a giant fan used to provide lift. When they wanted to
show a raven banking left or right, they'd simply have the crow hover & rotate
the camera.

------
jwilliams
There are reports of crows in South America using traffic to crack hard nuts.
They wait for cars to stop at a traffic light, leave the hard nuts out, wait
for the green light — and then collect the results on the next red.

The same birds will fly up and drop nuts to crack them. What is notable is
they will fly in diminishing lower arcs to drop the nuts. It’s a precise
conservation of energy.

Remarkable stuff.

------
newman8r
When I was ~10 years old, I found a fake decorative crow (Halloween stuff) and
I figured out that I could jump up and down with the fake crow and it would
only be a matter of time before a few real crows would start circling... 15
minutes later there would be 100 circling, then thousands. It became a party
trick that I'd show friends every now and then.

~~~
scotth
Why do you think they were interested?

~~~
newman8r
I always assumed it was because they thought I was attacking one of their
flock, like they were trying to intimidate me. They never came close or
swooped down or anything. Just circled hundreds of feet above.

~~~
jktj
From my experience they have strong social connection, whenever a crow died
within few minutes there would murder of crows circling that area like paying
your final respects. Absolutely beautiful creatures!

------
Iv
I am wondering where sulphur-crested cockatoo are on the scale. Before seeing
some in freedom up close in Australia, I never realized they actually could
grab objects with their claws like they are hands and put them in their mouth.

They seemed very smart to me. I wonder if they lose to crow only because they
are less prevalent around most labs in the world...

~~~
dmurray
Parrots get mentioned all the time in animal intelligence research. Normally
the experiments take different forms: you keep one parrot in captivity and
teach it to speak, while you observe the behaviour of groups of crows in the
wild.

~~~
EdwardDiego
I highly recommend this book, written by two American ornithologists watching
kea in the field for years:

[https://www.amazon.com/Kea-Bird-Paradox-Evolution-
Behavior/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Kea-Bird-Paradox-Evolution-
Behavior/dp/0520213394)

------
francisofascii
Related: The Crow and the Pitcher, one of Aesop's fables. Apparently it has
been known for some time crows were resourceful.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crow_and_the_Pitcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crow_and_the_Pitcher)

------
sprflyprgrmrguy
How do I go about gaining the trust of the local murder of crows? We've a
group of them that hang around, and they do an great job of scaring off the
3-4 red tail hawks in the neighborhood too... we've got chickens, and I'd love
to trade some aerial protection for food.

------
Razengan
Where are octopuses? Are they third smartest?

I don't think intelligence is a linear scale or gradient, or even a cube, more
like a cluster of multiple features/drivers/daemons operating at different
strengths in different species, all shaped by the needs of their bodies.

------
philshem
Funny and interesting was a recent episode of RadioLab

[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/world...](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/worlds-
smartest-animal)

------
xpatrikh
I found a related article on an other site today "A Dutch Startup Wants to
Train Crows to Pick Up Cigarette Butts" that seems to use the crow box.

[http://www.thecrowbox.com/](http://www.thecrowbox.com/)

------
gerbilly
Crows are pretty imaginative and playful.

For example, see this video of a crow tobogganing on a snowy roof.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA)

------
nikofeyn
that’s a bad assumption that primates are the second most intelligent animal.
i am personally convinced that dolphins, in particular orcas, a much smarter
than any primate species.

orcas are almost always left out of intelligence of animals discussions, but
they have a very refined intelligence that doesn’t require leaps of faith to
say, woah, that is very high level cognition going on.

at least the article includes this quote:

> Ranking the intelligence of animals seems an increasingly pointless exercise
> when one considers the really important thing: how well that animal is
> adapted to its niche

------
avgeek23
My neighbour has a fancy Persian munchkin cat everytime she comes out on the
apartment balcony all the crows from the neighborhood gather at the tree in
front of our building and watch her until she leaves.

------
MisterOctober
In Marijn Haverbeke's "Eloquent Javascript," there's a great section
describing how crows employ termite mounds to create information relay
networks -- remarkable stuff

------
lainga
Can I address the raven in the room here? How are corvids' future descendants
going to use tools? Beaks? Standing on one foot? Re-evolution of articulation
in the wings?

------
billsmithaustin
How crows end up running all the tobacco companies:
[https://www.crowdedcities.com/](https://www.crowdedcities.com/)

------
avainlakech
I used to live near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and I could swear
that the crows there are mimicking the sound of the fog horns.

------
lekda
In france we have an amusement park that have dressed crow to pick up left
over butt. They are doing quite a good job.

------
Fiahil
I love good articles about crows, and even more stories about them in the
comments! Please, don't hesitate to share!

------
johnstonnorth
One of my favourite quotes:

"To a clever crow, a scarecrow is an opportunity" \- Alan Scott

(but he in turn may have been quoting someone else)

------
senectus1
the crows in western Australia know how to open a kids school bag (zip or
buttons or both). then they know to pull the lunch box out and open that
(clasps, zipped even to pop the vacuum button before popping off the lid). So
now the kids have to keep their school bags in the room.

------
aagd
speaking of skills:
[https://twitter.com/Prokaryota/status/1132744852129636353?s=...](https://twitter.com/Prokaryota/status/1132744852129636353?s=20)

------
Eisenfaust
smart, but kinda annoying. i guess when you understand that you're more
intelligent than others you also understand that it's easy for you to
outcompete others. that's what us humans do and also looks that crows are at
the same page

------
PhaedrusV
Glancing through the headers I read that as "Cows could be..."

------
kylek
What makes us think that they aren't smarter than primates?

------
ahmedaly
It's interesting that in Qur'an 1400 yrs ago, it mentioned that the crow
guided Adam's son to burying his brother after he killed him.

Adam is the father of all humans according to Islamic beliefs and his son
killed his brother.

------
soufron
Which tells you how smart dinosaurs could have been...

~~~
LessDmesg
Birds _are_ dinosaurs, the only surviving clade of them. You don't have to
watch Jurassic Park to see a living dinosaur, just look at a pigeon or crow!

~~~
DagAgren
Look at a chicken! They are incredibly dinosaur-like.

------
buryat
what about orcas?

------
hellofunk
What!? Smarter than ravens?! The blasphemy!

------
5etho
What a wholesome thread :-)

------
ada1981
I love Cheryl Crow!

------
amelius
So they are at a top of the food chain, like us?

------
iambrj
something related:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html)

tldr: study suggests crows recognize human faces

------
hiruxxv
how to weight loss

------
hsnewman
I really dislike misleading headlines, so it could, or could not, right? This
says nothing.

------
Lagogarda
I hate these birds

~~~
nemonemo
Could this article explain why?

~~~
Lagogarda
noisy, attack people without a reason, kill other smaller birds, eat their
eggs and nestling and take over their spot. I used to live in a neighbourhood
with such a beautiful birds, now Crows took over an all I near in the morning
is CRAAW CRAAW

~~~
duelingjello
Live in Davis next to an active freight train track that shakes the ground and
tens of thousands of crows landing in the trees in the evening, hundreds per
tree, then let me know how you like that. :)

------
bigpumpkin
Looking at the complexity and size of whale and dolphin brains, i suspect they
are at least the equal of crows.

~~~
LessDmesg
Agreed. Birds have an inheren limit on head weight, which limits their brain
size. They do manage to use what they have quite well (parrots are also
remarkable in that regard), but the limit is there. Ultimately intelligence is
a tough nut to crack for such a stupid and limited thing as evolution: some
have a big brain but no hands, some have hands but cannot have a big brain
because space is used for something else (e.g. bears), some have hands and
space for brains but cannot increase head weight because not erect walking
etc. Once you're erect, there's a tendency for arms to atrophy (think T-rex
and ostriches). Jaws and the nasal cavity tend to take up space too, so an
intelligent species needs to have weak olfactory sense and be a meat/fruit
feeder. It's a miracle that a species like ours could combine all the
necessary, quite fragile, ingredients to develop intelligence.

~~~
stevesimmons
> It's a miracle that a species like ours could combine all the necessary,
> quite fragile, ingredients to develop intelligence.

The Anthropic Principle says this combination must have happened with
probability 1, otherwise there would be noone to observe it not happening.

~~~
LessDmesg
Nope, the anthropic principle does not imply that probability is 1. It's not
even really a principle, just a post-factum observation. There may have been
no one on Earth to write this stuff on a smartphone, ever. There might have
even been no life in our Universe, ever. We shouldn't take these things for
granted.

