Comments on: Not So Bird-Brained After All: Rooks Make and Use Tools

By: Lisette Root

Lisette Root — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:10:42 +0000

Perhaps they communicate on a non verbal level? I truly suspect that many many types of creatures do. I think spiders are particularly smart , and birds seem to me to be on another , higher plane of awareness. I know that birds in my life give love to me , and recieve love from me.

By: Grant H

Grant H — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:26:42 +0000

I’m very impressed.
Fashioning a hook out of wire requires some understanding about the physical properties of wire. You have to know that a piece of wire is different from say a twig and how.

By: allen

allen — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:06:46 +0000

talking about ‘crows’ brings this memory to light. i was walking across a bridge on a cold and snowy morning hoping for a ride to the nearby ski hill. as i walked i heard a light “thunk” and looked to my right and there on the snow lay a chicken leg bone exactly like the ones i had delivered to many a trash can after devouring the meat held therein.

“whereupon could this bone have come from?” i asked myself. i looked above and there perched on the street light was a rogue raven looking down on me with that one-eyed look they use as if to say, “dang, i missed.”

’nuff said.

By: amphiox

amphiox — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:46:41 +0000

It would truly be fascinating if we found evidence of dinosaur tool use. But modern birds, particularly the smart ones like the crows, have much larger brains than their dinosaur ancestors. The biggest brained dinos like the troodontids sit within the lower end of modern bird brain power. So it’s likely that much of the mental abilities of modern birds evolved after the split from the dinosaurs, and probably well after the KT extinction.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:41:06 +0000

Humans generally think of other animals as unthinking automatons, yet we keep finding out more and more that that simply isn’t the case.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:39:36 +0000

I think I know a few of the same people P does.

More seriously though, birds are descended from dinosaurs, who ruled the roost for millions of years. If they made tools out of wood or stone or fiber, would we recognize them, assuming any made it to the fossilization process? We can barely recognize intelligence in animals we’ve share our entire conscious history with, and have to devise all sorts of tests before we go “yeah, they’re pretty smart.”

Their genetics have made it through hundreds of millions of years just like ours have. They may have learned a trick or two.

By: p

Tue, 26 May 2009 15:14:27 +0000

I know people who are less creative than birds. Much can be learned from animals.