Crows are smarter than you think
Clever New Caledonian crows use one tool to acquire another : Not Exactly Rocket Science
New Caledonian crows are special. They can spontaneously make new tools from materials they have never seen before, like a hook from a bent wire. They have also been seen manufacturing new tools by altering existing ones and passing their newfound technology onto others, a ability even great apes aren't known to have. Now, Alex Taylor and colleagues from the University of Auckland have found that they can use one tool on another in the quest for food.
They showed seven crows a morsel of meat in a hole, and a stick that was too short to reach it. The birds also had access to two cages, one containing a useless stone, and the other containing a long stick that could reach the meat but was itself out of reach.
To a bird, every single crow worked out how to get the meat - they used the short stick to lever the long one out of its cage, and used that to retrieve the food. Their performance is all the more impressive because it equals that of gorillas and orang-utans, slightly surpasses that of chimps and goes well beyond the abilities of monkeys.
