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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

#301

Post by Smithalicious »

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

Everyone talks about this asinine shit all the time. It's not like cats kill more than ferrets and foxes did before humans caused their populations to decline.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#302

Post by gricardo99 »

derefr wrote: post #288
MS90 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading a story a while back about a kid that threw rocks at a tree full of crows one day when he was walking to the school bus. After that day, the crows decided that this child was the enemy. Many kids walked past the tree on the way to the school bus every day and the crows completely ignored them, but when little rock thrower walked by he'd literally get shit bombed by 20-30 crows all the way to the bu…

I wonder if anyone’s ever done an experiment on the social connectivity of crows, by first somehow pissing off an entire flock of crows; and then tagging a particular individual crow, and repeatedly being friendly to/appeasing that crow, and seeing how long the it takes for the message that you’re not such a jerk after all to spread among the rest of the crow population.

> flock of crows

This is called a murder of crows. I've always found that term odd, and it seems derogatory. I don't know the origin.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#303

Post by ethbro »

MS90 wrote: post #251
IanSanders wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder what one can do to "prove themselves", perhaps let the cat witness them catch something? Sounds like a great research subject.

Bite a rat to death in front of the cat and consume it raw while maintaining unbroken eye contact.

... and after that Ozzy Osbourne's cats never brought him dead animals again. The end.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#304

Post by thrownblown »

gricardo99 wrote: post #302
derefr wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if anyone’s ever done an experiment on the social connectivity of crows, by first somehow pissing off an entire flock of crows; and then tagging a particular individual crow, and repeatedly being friendly to/appeasing that crow, and seeing how long the it takes for the message that you’re not such a jerk after all to spread among the rest of the crow population.

> flock of crows This is called a murder of crows. I've always found that term odd, and it seems derogatory. I don't know the origin.

and multiple ravens are referred to as a "conspiracy" whereas a group of owls is a "parliament" and gather several vultures and you get a "venue"

I recently heard this used in a podcast and I got distracted by the term and looked up all this nonsense. TIL multiple jellyfish are a "smack"!

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#305

Post by ethbro »

state_less wrote: post #291
duelingjello wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeap. Food and valuables have to be toddler-proofed around crows. They can also steal your wallet or your keys if you leave them unsecured. And, damn, they're as good as human thieves at reading situations for opportunism.

I was in Nepal having breakfast. Some crows are sitting there watching me eat. I look down to read my book, and in not more than a few seconds, I hear the clinking of dishes. I look up and the crows are flying off with my toast and jam. It was right in front of me, but they were quick enough to get in and out before I could react. I realized that they are probably aware of my lack of attention to my food and that the…

I sat and watched a raven (majestic and BIG, if you've never seen one) at Yellowstone Park for a few minutes.

It was a big parking lot outside the gift shop, and some visitor had parked his motorcycle there. Pannier bags on the back.

The raven was sitting on one bag, actively working the zipper open. About a foot of zipper.

Which is pretty impressive, but the more impressive thing was how.

It would worry it for a couple seconds, tugging it a bit farther open, then stop, lift its head, and evaluate its surroundings.

If it didn't see anyone nearby, again with the zipper.

... I gained a new level of respect for corvids that day.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#306

Post by defined »

paozac wrote: post #96

It's very difficult to tell which is the smartest animal - or whether an animal is intelligent or not - because intelligence is a broad concept and there are many kinds of intelligence. If you're interested in this topic a good book is "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?", by Frans de Waal.

I highly recommend that book!

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#307

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

For more on crows' ability to remember human faces, see:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/09/bird-brains-crows-re...

NOTE: I can't find confirmation in the article or in the referenced study, but I could've sworn when I initially heard this story years ago, the "threatening" mask worn was a Nixon mask. Perhaps that was a later embellishment.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#308

Post by rotexo »

gullywhumper wrote: post #176

Here's another article about crow intelligence and crows in Seattle [1]. Some interesting topics from the article include crows have 'funerals', they can recognize individual humans, individual crows commute to the same specific areas during the day to forage and return to concentrated roosts with other crows at end of the day. Living in Minneapolis with a home office overlooking the Mississippi River, I've noticed c…

In the East San Francisco bay area, I have observed that the crows behave in an incredibly habitual fashion. Every evening, huge crowds of them gather near Lake Merritt in Oakland. I see them streaming over my apartment in Berkeley a little before dusk. Some contingent flies north over my apartment around dawn. It seems like they disperse to forage during the day. I really wish I knew how they decided who gets what turf during the day. Do they select where they are going based on where their friends will be?

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#309

Post by reading-at-work »

Smithalicious wrote: post #301
elhudy wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone talks about this asinine shit all the time. It's not like cats kill more than ferrets and foxes did before humans caused their populations to decline.

I disagree. If that were the case many of those smaller species would have gone extinct ages ago due to natural predation from wild foxes and ferrets. Domesticated cats are a new issue because they often hunt with the same voracity of wild animals, but don't experience the natural pressure on their population that wild predators do because they're human pets.

If there were as many human households with domestic foxes as there are with cats, then foxes would absolutely be considered an unnaturally potent problem for wild rodent and bird species too.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#310

Post by birdman21 »

thrownblown wrote: post #304
gricardo99 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flock of crows This is called a murder of crows. I've always found that term odd, and it seems derogatory. I don't know the origin.

and multiple ravens are referred to as a "conspiracy" whereas a group of owls is a "parliament" and gather several vultures and you get a "venue" I recently heard this used in a podcast and I got distracted by the term and looked up all this nonsense. TIL multiple jellyfish are a "smack"!

And hedgehogs form an array!:)
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