Aesop's rook is no bird brain
One of Aesop’s fables no longer seems as fantastic as previously thought.
The tale of The Crow and the Pitcher depicts a crow almost dying from thirst until he uses his ingenuity to access water that is in a deep and narrow pitcher. The bird tries several resolutions but only succeeds when he drops pebbles into the pitcher, causing the water to rise.
A team at Cambridge University have been hard at work teasing rooks with hard-to-get worms. They placed tiny worms in a vat of water and the clever birds opted straight for the pebbles. Four rooks were tried and tested and each one dropped in just enough of the biggest pebbles to get to the worm.
The rooks preferred the tube filled with water as opposed to the tube filled with sawdust. The birds made no attempt to drop the pebbles in the sawdust filled tube.
In a statement, the aptly-named Chris Bird, lead study author at Cambridge, described the creatures as “remarkably intelligent, and in many ways (they) rival the great apes in their physical intelligence and ability to solve problems."
Comments
I wonder if these amazing skills of rooks can also be seen as an indication that these birds can believe,
that is believe in their own solution by using their particular skills, so, by knowing and believing themselves. So they are able to co-create a solution. Is the same effect obtained when the stones are already near the tube with worm, when the bird enters that cave?
Arnold Fellendans, the Netherlands, working on belief in animals.
oops- I forgot a hyphen -
feeling-better-naturally.com/savethebirds.html
This is really amazing! Stories like this make me realize how imperative it is to protect birds and their environment in every way we can. One way would be to take a few minutes and go sign the RSPB petition at:
feeling-betternaturally.com/savethebirds.html