Bernd Heinrich an Ethologist who has done a lot of work with Ravens
( his book, Ravens in Winter is certainly worth a read). His studies
show that Ravens have a remarkable degree of problem solving ability.
Heinrich and Thomas Bugnyar wrote a fascinating article in Scientific
American showing that Ravens even appear to be able to use logic to
solve problems. An overview of the article can be found at http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/04/just_how_smart_are_ravens.php
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
On 09/05/2009, at 10:09 PM, Chris Sanderson wrote:
Hi Peter,
There are other examples of crow intelligence out there. Japanese
Crows for
example have developed a strategy for getting into nuts by dropping them
under the wheels of cars at pedestrian crossings. I believe there is
another corvid in North America that has over 100 calls in its
"language".
Just 2 quick examples, I'm sure there's many more.
Regards,
Chris
On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Peter Shute <> wrote:
Somone will probably tell me it's been proven otherwise, but I'm a
little
wary of attributing too much intelligence to crows, etc. It might be
that
they have somehow evolved very advanced skills for getting things
out of
holes with sticks, but not for much else.
Once they've evolved the instinct to get a stick, and (remarkably) to
modify one end as a hook, there's not that much to it.
Peter Shute
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