New Caledonian Crows
I’ve just become aware of some research being done at Auckland University in the area of tool use in New Caledonian crows. I know next to nothing about animal cognition but the fact that there is a non-primate species that makes use of tools raises a lot of interesting questions. A while ago the ability to make use of tools was touted as one of the defining characteristics of humans but it wasn’t long before other primates were found to be able to use tools. What makes these particular crows interesting is 1. the fact that they are so far removed from primates, 2. they don’t have the “kind of brain” you’d expect for tool use (which means our expectations are wrong), and 3. they are (as far as anyone knows) alone among not only crows but all other birds in their ability to use tools in this way.
Russell Gray on the New Caledonian crows:
Russell Gray on metatool use:
Alex Taylor on the trap-tube experiment:
Tags: New Caledonian crows, tools
I look forward to checking out the vids –
Would web-building types of spiders also be seen as being tool-using creatures? (just because they make their web shouldn’t deny that they still use it?)
Its interesting and perhaps quite unique for a bird. A few other non-primate mammals use tools – sea otters use of stones to break off shellfish is one example.
True, true. I guess like just about everything else in nature it’s a gradient and so there is probably a big, fat blurry line between “uses tools” and “doesn’t use tools”.
Fascinating!! Especially the various tool-making cultures, the ability to use a tool to get a tool to get food, and the “understanding” of how a hole works. Wow!
The diverse tool-making cultures make me wonder if the trick is in the ability to pass along information (or conversely, maybe it’s the ability to observe and learn from others). In other words, I wonder if there are other species that have individual member who occasionally figure out that they can use a stick to get food, but they fail to communicate this ability to others in the species so it never catches on – and we never notice the behavior because the it is limited to a random individual here or there.
The other thing I wonder about is, even if a bird brain is organizationally different from a primate brain, are there certain structures that are similar? For example, the vision center in birds and primates may be similar since the common ancestor of birds and primates already had vision. But more recently developed structures might be similar too, even if they developed independently in birds and primates after the evolutionary split. For example, bats, birds, and many insects can all fly – even though the flight apparatus evolved along different paths and is made of different materials (feathers, skin, and exoskeleton), there is still a common physiology that permits flight. I wonder if a particular set of features in the crows brain could have evolved which permitted tool use. And if so, I wonder to what extent these features are similar to the corresponding features in our brains.
Really cool stuff!!
That’s an interesting thought A3.
I can imagine that there would be a bit of the brain that enables a creature to perform logical deduction (or even just blind experiment). And I can imagine that there would be a bit of the brain that enables a creature to mimic what it sees others doing. But perhaps these “bits” don’t always develop in tandem and that could explain why learned tool use is so rare among animals who can be observed to experiment (and/or deduce) or mimic the behaviour of others but not necessarily both at once.
I really don’t know enough about it but I’d love to know more.
Coincidentally, Professor Russell Gray featured on this week’s lecture in the six-part Radio New Zealand Darwin Lectures and is available to download. He discusses the behaviour of the crows along with differences and similarities between humans and other species as well as the evolutionary influences on human behaviours such as religion, language and culture.
There is a lecture in the Grey Matters series on bird brains (Grey Matters: Bird Brains). It’s a while since I watched it but I remember a video of these crows being shown. The lecture went into using bird brains to investigate the origins and nature of human brains.
Cheers Ken; that was interesting.