Caching food, pilferage and deceiving by Indian common crows (Corvus splendens)

摘要

Corvid birds, including many species of crows, are known to exhibit behaviours indicative of their superior brain capacity in the avine world 1–5 , with high cognitive abilities comparable to the non-human primates 6–9 . In recent years, crows have been the focus of studies by behavioural biologists and animal psychologists who have studied their capacity of contextdependent tool using 4 , tool making and metatool use 2,4,9–11 , observational learning and cultural transmission 12,13 , to discriminate food by nutritional value 14 and conspecific competitors based on their knowledge state 15–17 , human face recognition capacity and prolonged episodic memory 17 , and size and structure of their brain associated with such behaviours 5,18 . Except the recent works done in Japan on jungle crow (Corvus macrorhynchos) 12,16 , all these studies are being done on crow species found in Europe, North America and Australia–New Zealand.