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Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

bbc.com

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Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#271

Post by drakonka »

elhudy wrote: post #244
eps wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats tend to bring gifts too. My grandmother used to receive that of dead moles, freshly caught mice and what have you, invariably placed dead center on her pillow. She wasn't a fan of that cat before, and she didn't like it much better after. No idea why.

Cats are responsible for killing up to 25 billion animals annually and have directly contributed to the extinction of at least 33 different species. Growing up our family cat brought us a constant stream of rabbits, birds, and moles. It is actually a problem that nobody talks about, because cats are cute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife

To me it seems like everybody talks about it. I've lived in the US, Australia, and now Sweden, and almost everyone seems to have some sort of awareness of and opinion on this issue.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#272

Post by garren »

sethammons wrote: post #214
eps wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats tend to bring gifts too. My grandmother used to receive that of dead moles, freshly caught mice and what have you, invariably placed dead center on her pillow. She wasn't a fan of that cat before, and she didn't like it much better after. No idea why.

One theory I heard on cats leaving dead things for you is that they think of you as a non-effective cat that needs help killin things, similar to a mom cat teaching kittens to hunt.

I’ve read this, too. Cats leave you gifts not because they’re being particularly friendly, but because they regard you as an incompetent hunter. You see the behavior in indoor-only cats as well though, say, leaving toys on your pillow, etc. In that case, I wonder if they’re reciprocating? You feed me, I feed you (kind of).

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#273

Post by jbattle »

netcan wrote: post #111

It's fascinating that intelligence exists in different clades & phylum of animals: crows, octopus, apes etc. It suggests intelligence is not very progressive, in evolution. It advances & recedes, and evolution can find multiple paths to it from various starting point. It doesn't take a mammalian brain. Who know what other animal intelligence exists today, or in the past. The current crop of species (us excepted) may…

Counterpoints:

- Cave art from 44kya https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/440000-year-old-cave-art-d...

- 'Venus' statues - some possibly as old as 300k years!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines

I agree that the fact intelligence has arisen in wildly separate parts of the 'tree of life' probably indicates something about the likelihood for intelligence to develop elsewhere. Like you said, it's not a fluke, but it's also not something that only arises under very specific progressive conditions.

I'm not sure whether it recedes or not - that's an interesting and slightly terrifying question

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#274

Post by archi42 »

DagAgren wrote: post #175
classified wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you forgetting the birds of prey?

Where I live, an island right by the mainland, birds of prey are not allowed. If one shows up, the crows will all take to the air, maybe fifty to a hundred of them, and will yell and chase the bird of prey until it leaves the island. Once it is over water, they will give a few last screams and turn around and go back to their business. I've seen a bird of prey try to dive and swoop low over the land to evade them. Th…

That's strength in numbers. I saw two crows trying this against an eagle,... I think they only survived that because the eagle was too lazy and figured it was easier to just grab some trainer-provided food after the show. Mind, the crows probably didn't recognize the huge bird, since they're not native here. That one "belonged" to a small wildlife reservoir. The trainer said it was more like he agreed to stay there in exchange for free lunch; which meant after a show the bird would occasionally hit the road for a few days, if he felt like it.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#275

Post by throwaway_tech »

elhudy wrote: post #244
eps wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats tend to bring gifts too. My grandmother used to receive that of dead moles, freshly caught mice and what have you, invariably placed dead center on her pillow. She wasn't a fan of that cat before, and she didn't like it much better after. No idea why.

Cats are responsible for killing up to 25 billion animals annually and have directly contributed to the extinction of at least 33 different species. Growing up our family cat brought us a constant stream of rabbits, birds, and moles. It is actually a problem that nobody talks about, because cats are cute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife

I think this is one of the reasons cats were worshiped/revered in ancient Egypt (for 3,000 years in religious practice). They were the official protectors of the pharaohs chambers against snakes and scorpions.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#276

Post by jancsika »

joshowar wrote: post #255
jancsika wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. That's such a misanthropic statement I don't even know where to begin. Just sticking to the kinds of structures a human and a crow can build in the wild, it's still obvious to the untrained observer that the human is well beyond the crow in terms of intelligence.

What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a house, or hut, or lean-to? Think you'd just arrive at these ideas on your own? Think you'd even consider building your own at all? Or would you just keep walking until you found a cave? We depend more on our collective intelligence and teachings than you think.

> What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a house, or hut, or lean-to?

For an instructive example-- a crow's nest of sticks, leaves, etc. Especially if that human comes up happens to come upon a crow's nest in the wild. Notice that the human can probably scale that design to fit their own larger stature.

Now imagine a crow coming upon a little 1x1 dugout crawdad battle arena, or a little lattice-structure of sticks that encloses a caddisfly larva collection of a 9 year old. If you saw a crow observe and then build that you'd have quite a research paper on your hands.

But we're probably going to get stuck in physical differences so let's change the subject and just give both animals a stick.

One of them uses it to extract a morsel of food from a hard to reach area.

The other uses it to mark time according to either the moon cycle or possibly something else that lasts that long. I.e., this animal has created a calendar.

Using historical evidence please tell me which animal performed which feat?

The thing is-- I really do find the intelligence of crows fascinating! I just don't get the desire to pair that with the "human's aren't such hot shit" trope.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#278

Post by marcosdumay »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #148
netcan wrote: post #111

It's fascinating that intelligence exists in different clades & phylum of animals: crows, octopus, apes etc. It suggests intelligence is not very progressive, in evolution. It advances & recedes, and evolution can find multiple paths to it from various starting point. It doesn't take a mammalian brain. Who know what other animal intelligence exists today, or in the past. The current crop of species (us excepted) may…

A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. What makes us special is persistent collective learning and abstract communication. Unlike animals, generations of humans don't have to keep re-solving the same problems. As a species we have cumulative persistent memory for techniques and abstractions. That's the real game changer. But it took a surp…

I don't think the expression "wild untrained human" even makes sense. There haven't been any wild untrained human ancestor since a long time before humans appeared.

Also, most smart animals have persistent knowledge that they pass from one generation to the other.

We are just smarter than those other animals. Tens of thousands of years ago, humans were already a force not to be messed with. Hell, a million years ago our ancestors were already on the business of extinguishing their predators.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#279

Post by dbingham »

dta3456 wrote: post #139

When I was a child, I'd spend a lot of time at my grandfathers farm, and one summer he took in an injured crow that hurt its wing. For some strange reason, he named all of his animals Jack, cats, dogs and now crows. So we'd go out in the morning and my grandfather would call out "Jack" and the Dog would come running down the yard, and then next thing you'd see the crow hopping down the yard after the dog. It would ar…

Crows also have vocal chords capable of producing human language, and - similar to parrots - they can learn human phrases in the right conditions.

My partner used to volunteer at the local Wildcare and they had an injured crow resident that they couldn't release named Da Vinci. Da Vinci would always greet visitors with "Hello! How are you? How are you?"

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#280

Post by orthoxerox »

rapnie wrote: post #197
DagAgren wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, an island right by the mainland, birds of prey are not allowed. If one shows up, the crows will all take to the air, maybe fifty to a hundred of them, and will yell and chase the bird of prey until it leaves the island. Once it is over water, they will give a few last screams and turn around and go back to their business. I've seen a bird of prey try to dive and swoop low over the land to evade them. Th…

There are many bird species that do the same. Last year in Rotterdam, Netherlands they released a trained American bald eagle from a highrise building to fly to a designated spot across the river. It never arrived there as it was attacked from all sides by other birds, mostly seagulls, and chased across the city. It took hours to find the eagle, and when they did the poor beast was exhausted.

Well, a bald eagle is a glorified seagull, a golden eagle would've fared better.
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