Submitted by Daniele Campello on Mon, 02/08/2021 - 14:27
The BBC Earth Amaze Me with Chris and Megs talks about research on the episode called "How smart are crows?" available on their Facebook page.
The BBC Earth programme focuses on the amazing cognitive capacities of crows in general, and specifically the New Caledonian crow, which uses and manufactures a variety of tools for future use. The species of bird, like its cousins the hays and ravens. is able to execute an impressive series of sequential actions for future us.
The programme focuses on an 8-stage sequential tool use task, followed by our latest paper on future planning (*), in which we show that New Caledonian crows can use tools to plan for specific future events. Crows learned a temporal sequence where they were A) shown a baited apparatus B) five minutes later given a choice of five objects and C) 10 minutes later given access to the apparatus. At test, these crows were presented with one of two tool-apparatus combinations. For each combination, the crows chose the right tool for the right future task, while ignoring previously useful tools and a low-value food item. This study establishes that planning for specific future tool use can evolve via convergent evolution, given that corvids and humans shared a common ancestor over 300 million years ago, and offers a route to mapping the planning capacities of animals.
(*) Boeckle, M., Schiestl, M., Frohnwieser, A, Gruber, R., Miller, R., Suddendorf, T., Gray, R.D., Taylor, A.H., Clayton N.S. (2020). New Caledonian crows flexibly plan for specific future tool use. Proceedings of the Royal Society 287, 20201490
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