You ever think about how crows are acting not unlike how early humans probably did and you’re just like. Oh ok
I saw a Thing one time about how the earliest sign of civilization is a healed femur because that shows that we were taking care of each other because if we Didn’t a broken leg would mean you Die because you can’t. Do things
And I was thinking about this and I remembered also seeing an article about this one mated pair of crows where one of them broke its beak and thus couldn’t properly feed itself on its own. So the other one helps
So basically I have connected the two dots (“you didn’t connect shit”) I’ve connected them
And also they not only use tools but teach each other how to construct them, so uh
Really makes you think
Realistically I know immortality would kinda suck but I’d love to see where crows are going with this
Fun fact, there is little info on crows (as far as species of interest go) because they’re so good at evading human tactics for collection and observation. I had a friend who studied them in grad school. Not only do they describe humans to each other (so crows you’ve never seen before will avoid you), they also learn the precise distance of net cannons (for trapping and tagging) after 1 encounter and then stand at that distance the entire time (making naive researchers think maybe they can juuuust caych em). So basically you need to befriend them (a common strategy), or find a murder that’s never seen you before (researchers wear presidents masks to throw them off, but then they remember and describe the cars). In this case, you have one chance to collect enough in the group to get good data. Whatever crow you catch once, you probably will never catch again, ruling out biosensing devices (like they use with other birds and turtles n junk).
The latest big finding about crows is that they have a grasp of knowledge breadth, meaning they “know what they know” meaning they are conscious (self aware), have subjective experiences and can reflect on their knowledge. (Source) This also implies they have an understanding of the unknown.
Look up Andreas Nieder and Jon Marzluff’s work if you want the deep skinny.
Tag: crows
A bird explaining to a hedgehog crossing so it doesn’t die.
!!! ok but that’s legitimately what it’s doing!! That’s a corvid right there (looks like a hooded crow, to be precise), which means it’s intelligent enough to recognize, a) cars are dangerous and streets should be treated with a certain degree of caution, b) this car’s slowing down for them–cars do that sometimes–which means they’re not in imminent danger, so it doesn’t have to fly away just yet, c) that hedgehog’s still gonna get killed if it doesn’t MOVE, FAST (cars can change speed very quickly and the hedgehog’s still in the way), and almost certainly also d) if the bird does nothing it gets a free lunch.
Y’all, Y’ALL. This bird is consciously deciding to put itself in danger in order to save the life of a very stupid creature. A creature which, if the bird did nothing, could be free food.
i can’t – look if you follow me you know I have a thing for corvids, but this is – like!!! People are always saying “ah yes they have sub-human intelligence and don’t consider anything that isn’t immediately necessary for their own survival/pleasure,” but! Whether or not it can do philosophy, this crow is clearly demonstrating compassion. Even if it’s just the kind of compassion a toddler shows to a snail, a social creature that instinctively recognizes the potential for emotion in other beings, that’s still huge and cool and important and corvids!!! are! neat!!!
They’re incredibly smart! And kind!!!
(Source: https://verdantvulpus.tumblr.com/)