Awesome.

I've seen a similar study but in more of a "lab" situation. See below:



I like how this new study is in a more natural setting and with the different tools accessed through different types of obstacles/obstructions.

keypad5 wrote:Awesome.

I've seen a similar study but in more of a "lab" situation. See below:



I like how this new study is in a more natural setting and with the different tools accessed through different types of obstacles/obstructions.

I remember seeing something about their ability to effectively use tools elsewhere as well, but I cannot remember where. Great stuff though!

Brilliant!

Joshua Klein's TED talk on the intelligence of crows.

Nora_Leonard wrote:From the BBC News website:

New Caledonian crows have given scientists yet another display of their tool-using prowess.

Scientists from New Zealand's University of Auckland have found that the birds are able to use three tools in succession to reach some food.

The crows, which use tools in the wild, have also shown other problem-solving behaviour, but this find suggests they are more innovative than was thought.

Videos and the rest of the text can be found here.

That research is a couple of years old I think, their new research is much more interesting: http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/crows/

Currently they're looking at the crows' understanding of folk physics; for example, whether they understand the concept of gravity, or whether they have learnt systematic relations between specific objects in the world. And I should note that Russell Gray and Alex Taylor are brilliant scientists. Russell was my evo psych lecturer a few years ago, and Alex gave a talk at a conference I went to last year and some of the stuff they come up with (the results, but also their experimental designs) are pretty awe inspiring.

There was an interesting discussion on this topic on the old forum. Another reason why it shouldn't have been dumped.

Nora_Leonard wrote:When I was doing a PhD in anatomy we got this new professor who I really didn't like. He thought he was being really clever when he set as a question on a second science anatomy exam "What distinguishes humans from the other animals?" The answer he was looking for was "Humans are the only animals that use tools." I told him that this wasn't true. He then said, "Well we are the only animal that MAKES tools." Again wrong. But he refused to change the question.

This guy so pissed me off, it always gives me great pleasure to see films like this.

I had a leading biological anthropologist get aggressive with me in a tutorial class when I challenged his claim that chimps don't have culture. I think it's harder to admit you are wrong when you are in position of authority.

I told of two stories relating to the intelligence of crows in the RDForum. It doesn't have to do with tool use in the sense as above, unless the crows used us humans as their tools!
Here, the stories once again:
My friend regularly walked her large Labrador on the hills at the edge of the Vienna woods. One day she noticed a crow flying just above her making a huge fuss, often time landing just a few feet ahead of the path, over and over again only to fly off while screeching towards some bushes in the distance, further downhill. This went on for about 10 minutes. She knew this was most unusual behaviour and decided to tie up the dog on a tree and walk towards the bushes. The crow screeched all the way and "hovered" or circled above a certain area in the thicket, then settled on one and watched her. She saw some movement in the bushes and saw that another crow had got tangled in some wire and was struggling. She went to help, and though it was tedious trying to help a large scared animal, she managed to untangle it. She noticed one of the talons was injured, but the birds flew away together.

Another story was told to us by the keeper of an inn in the hills near to Salzburg. I asked him about a newspaper article that was framed, near the entrance: translated from the German: "Innkeeper rescues crows making them friends for life"
Very similar to above story. One morning when he emptied the garbage pails, he saw a crow flying towards him and then away to a point about 250 meters away, to an outcrop of rocks. Repeatedly. He decided to go see what it was all about and found that one crow had got caught in a crevice (i think he said a rock had trapped it)
He released the bird. He says they are his "free roaming pets" and they know their names when he calls them. A vet has since tagged them and says they are male and female. They return every year (for the past 10 years at the time we spoke to him)

Spearthrower wrote:

Nora_Leonard wrote:When I was doing a PhD in anatomy we got this new professor who I really didn't like. He thought he was being really clever when he set as a question on a second science anatomy exam "What distinguishes humans from the other animals?" The answer he was looking for was "Humans are the only animals that use tools." I told him that this wasn't true. He then said, "Well we are the only animal that MAKES tools." Again wrong. But he refused to change the question.

This guy so pissed me off, it always gives me great pleasure to see films like this.

I had a leading biological anthropologist get aggressive with me in a tutorial class when I challenged his claim that chimps don't have culture. I think it's harder to admit you are wrong when you are in position of authority.

Out with the old...

What was his basis for the claim?

(Incidentally, this shit is what makes me so wary of ever getting a qualification... I might start to take myself seriously or some shit, and that always seems to end in ludicrous ossification of intellect. Stop learning? Same as dying, just takes longer.

What was his basis for the claim?

In a discipline like Anthropology, there's a lot of rivalry between the different sub-disciplines. Biological anthropologists tended to talk with scorn about Social anth because it is 'not scientific', and Social anthropologists commented that biological was too limited in understanding. The good thing was that they used to run debates between the 2 sides, and they would get quite heated. The downside is that they didn't seem to realise that they could both be right, and that both types of inquiry were useful for studying humans.

I tried to explain my position with regards to learning, and the different practices, like tool use, of chimps in different areas. His response was to bare his teeth at me and hunch his shoulders: I think he'd spent too long studying apes!


But sorry - back to the corvids. I love these birds, always fascinating to watch and especially interesting to see how they've come to exploit all types of human constructed areas. Here in BKK, you see them taking advantage of the Skytrain's lofty perch to oversee their domain!

I saw a documentary once that showed crows dropping hard-shelled nuts on a pedestrian crosswalk. The cars would drive over the nuts and crack them open. Then the crows would wait for the pedestrian walk lights to come on (and therefore for the traffic to stop) before hopping down and eating the nuts.

Craziness.

I think it's awesome, but I'll revise that opinion if I see one driving off with my car.

Joshua Klein has lots of great studies into corvids. Here's a good one (I think it includes some footage of the crows dropping nuts onto streets, iirc)

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/josh ... crows.html



(no idea how to embed TED vids)

My wife and I have been watching a crow stealing fat balls we put out for the birds. This guy is so clever and he has outsmarted me in trying to stop him.

Once he has the ball he carries it over to the water and dunks it until it is soft. Great entertainment I must say.