New Caledonian crows can make, use and even store their own tools. (Photo : University of Auckland)
Scientists have captured a video of crows not only making and using tools but also, storing these same tools for later use which marks the first time that crows have been captured doing this in the wild, according to a new study.
Scientists have also known for a long time that crows are considered to be highly intelligent where prior research and video footage reveals how they make their own tools. Now, researchers from the University of St. Andrews and the University of Exeter says that this footage of the birds reveal using their skills without any aid.
According to co-author of the study Jolyon Troscianko, fieldworkers have apparently seen them in glimpses using a hooked stick tool, however the only footage comes from baited feeding sites where raw materials for tool making and probing tasks were already provided to the crows by scientists.
In this new study, the researchers have successfully obtained close-up video of the birds while making tools under completely natural conditions in their own habitat.
Researchers used tiny spy cameras that are attached to the tail feathers of 19 crows. The cameras eventually safely detach from the crows within a few days where scientists saw instances of the birds while fashioning hook tools to investigate tree cracks for food. Scientists now believe that these tools are precious to these birds.
Troscianko reveals how one instance involves a crow dropping its tool, and then recovers it from the ground shortly after, which suggests that they value their tools so much that they do not simply discard them after one use.
These crows also known as Corvus moneduloides that were observed in the South Pacific in an island known as New Caledonia located in between Australia and New Zealand, where scientists even suggest that the corvids probably have more brain power than primates.
The birds are apparently experts in making tools out of whiddle twigs with their bills, even shaping them into hooked bug grabbers. There was even one crow that made its own tool under one minute where it then immediately used it to probe leaves and tree hollows to search for bugs.
This new study reveals how these birds are truly efficient when it comes to their labors and even despise carelessness when hunting in their environment, where they can even stow away their tools in tree holes for safe keeping.
This new study is published in the journal Biology Letters.
