Crows tools bbc

Experiments have now revealed that these hooked tools are 10 times faster at retrieving a snack than the alternative tool - a simple twig.

Measuring the hooks' effectiveness tells scientists something about what drove this tool-use to evolve. Beyond that, the scientists say the insight has provided them a first glimpse of the "evolution of a new technology" in the animal kingdom. The findings are published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The earliest human-made fishing hooks - from about 23, years ago - were one of the most significant technological milestones.

The archaeologists, who unearthed these seashell-carved hooks in a cave on the Japanese island of Okinawa , said this early "maritime technology" had allowed humans to survive on islands. Lead researcher on the crows study, Prof Christian Rutz, told BBC News: "[Our invention of fish hooks] was incredibly recent - only 1, generations ago, which is an eye-blink in evolutionary terms. Understanding what drove the crows' tool-manufacturing provides Prof Rutz and his colleagues with a unique and valuable "non-human model" to investigate the origins of this fundamental step in human progress.

Media requires JavaScript to play. The crows were using tools to learn about the object which was novel, and potentially dangerous, without making direct contact. Crows and other members of the corvid family are remarkably intelligent. Watch these carrion crows crack a nutty problem. Brown-necked ravens team up to hunt lizards, revealing an unexpected level of intelligence according to scientists. Find out more about tool use in animals. Visit Animal Cognition to read more about the intelligence of New Caledonian crows.

Clever crows go to 'tool school' 26 Oct 10 Earth News. Clever ravens cooperatively hunt 01 Dec 09 Earth News. Animal Cognition: New Caledonian crows use tools for non-foraging activities. Printable version. Rutz is unequivocal. Some birds, like the New Caledonian crows he studies — can do remarkable things. In a paper published earlier this year , he and his co-authors described how New Caledonians seek out a specific type of plant stem from which to make their hooked tools.

Experiments showed that crows found the stems they desired even when they had been disguised with leaves from a different plant species. This suggested that the birds were selecting a kind of material for their tools that they knew was just right for the job.

In the wild, New Caledonians use their tools to scoop insects out of holes, for example in tree trunks. Footage of this behaviour has been caught on camera. You might think that some animals are smarter than others — with humans at the top of the proverbial tree. Certainly, humans do rely excessively on intelligence to get by. Chimps, notes Dakota McCoy at Harvard University , have been shown to possess better short-term memories than humans.

This might help them to memorise where food is located in the forest canopy, for example. Ranking the intelligence of animals seems an increasingly pointless exercise when one considers the really important thing: how well that animal is adapted to its niche. Intelligence is, first and foremost, a means towards specialisation. And New Caledonians are far from the only non-human species to have evolved the ability to use tools. The list of other animals that share this trait includes chimpanzees, parrots, alligators and even crabs.

Crows and ravens have a natural curiosity, research suggest Credit: Alamy. While cognition may help a creature to do things required for survival in its own environment, other animals get by via other means. Where a crow uses mental abilities and tools to access hard-to-reach food, a giraffe simply stretches its long neck. A crow has now been shown to apply its cognitive abilities to advanced problem solving. True, had already learned how the individual steps worked but solving them in sequence presents an even greater challenge.

McCoy, like Rutz, also studies New Caledonian crows. New Caledonians were trained to recognise that a box at one end of a table contained more food than a box at the opposite end.

Then, the crows were presented with a box in the middle of the table — suggesting an uncertain quantity of meat inside. Birds that had recently used tools to retrieve food from a container approached the mystery box more quickly than those that had not used tools. This indicated that tool use made the crows more optimistic, says McCoy. Cognition, says McCoy, can be fun.