Animals are always able to surprise due to many qualities and abilities that make them extremely intelligent, distinguishing them from each other and often leaving scholars surprised. If you were asked to think about an extremely intelligent animalyou would most likely think of dolphins, which actually have a very developed brain, but not only do they appear to be the most intelligent of the animals on our planet.
In fact, among others there are also crows: it is a medium-large sized species, with a very robust and slender appearance, characterized by a small rounded head and a conical-shaped beak. Generally, crows are diurnal birds that are not too social, as they only form groups on certain occasions, such as during the breeding season or to obtain food.
Precisely when it comes to this last topic, the Ravens have always shown that they have it an extremely developed intelligence which allows them to be able to obtain food much more easily, thanks to some techniques that make this task easier for them, which in nature can also be very difficult.
According to a study that was conducted by researchers from the University of Tübingenlocated in Germany, the crows even managed to perform statistical reasoning: in this way they are able to reason and make decisions according to the probabilities that can favor them obtaining a certain reward.
Making a comparison with children, the latter do not learn the concept of zero as a numerical quantity until they are three years of age, while crows are able to quickly apply this idea precisely due to the shape of their brain, which has a fairly large size compared to to their body, as well as the forebrain has an important sizewhich is the area associated with statistical and analytical reasoning.
How the brain of crows works: here are some examples
Chances are, this has happened to you see some videos on social media which had crows as protagonists. A reel that went viral some time ago, in fact, had this bird as its protagonist: during the filming you could see the crow intent on drinking water from a bottle, but its beak was not long enough to be able to reach the one left further up bottom. Not wanting to give up that very precious source, the crow had therefore made an ingenuity by taking some stones with his beak and throwing them inside the bottle.
Therefore, by using an instrument such as a simple stone, that crow understood that in that way the water level would rise and consequently it would be much easier for him to drink. In fact, some crows there ability to use tools she is really amazing and also the biologist Celia Heyes had conducted studies on the matter.
Other studies have shown that crows are also capable of plan and memorize. During some of them, the researchers let these birds hide their food in some hiding places, and then go and retrieve it later. In addition to effortlessly remembering where they had decided to hide their loot, they were able to adapt their strategies to recover it based on different environmental conditions. Furthermore, in case a threat approached their hiding place, the crows did their utmost to change the zone immediately where they had placed the food, so as to protect it.
Another ability of crows is that they know adapt quickly to new situations, and it is a fundamental cognitive ability to survive in an ever-changing and dangerous environment like today’s. Crows, in fact, are able to easily adapt to different habitats, whether urban centers or forests, and consequently also manage to survive in environments that have undergone various modifications by us humans.
What makes these birds so intelligent? It all depends on these cells
According to a work published on Journal of Comparative Biologythe very strong intelligence of these birds is due to the presence of a group of cells called interneurons, which are related to information processing. This investigation was carried out by Felix Strokens of theRuhr University in Bochumin Germany.
During this study, different animals such as domestic roosters, domestic pigeons, ostriches and three different species belonging to the crow family were compared, and it was noted that these cells were present in the brain of each specimen. It was found that, however, interneurons were indeed abundant in the crow family.
These cells, in fact, allow us to process the information that is received by the sensory neurons and consequently send different inputs to motor neurons and are essential for making decisions, planning for the future and assessing risks. In fact, on average crows possess 290 million of these cells, which are more than double those present in the other birds considered in the study. We humans, on the other hand, have 1.3 billion.
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