Bird brains

摘要

In Mythology, literature and fable, members of the crow family, or corvids, often appear as deities, thieves, or harbingers of doom. A common theme in tales about such birds-crows, magpies, ravens, jays and jackdaws-is their superior intelligence over other animals, sometimes even including humans.rnScientists have found that corvids are, indeed, particularly clever. In 1996, a group of New Caledonian crows in New Zealand were observed making and using hooked twigs as tools to capture food. Two years later, it was shown that western scrub jays seemed to have a form of memory that had previously been thought unique to humans: they were able to recall what a past experience was, and where and when it occurred. They remembered where they had stored food and what kind of food it was, and would even recover the most perishable items first.