Tübingen neurobiologists investigate neuronal basis of
crows’ intelligence
Scientists have long suspected that corvids – the family of
birds including ravens, crows and magpies – are highly intelligent. Now,
Tübingen neurobiologists Lena Veit und Professor Andreas Nieder have
demonstrated how the brains of crows produce intelligent behavior when the birds
have to make strategic decisions. Their results are published in the latest
edition of Nature Communications.
Crows are no bird-brains. Behavioral biologists have even
called them “feathered primates” because the birds make and use tools, are able
to remember large numbers of feeding sites, and plan their social behavior
according to what other members of their group do. This high level of
intelligence might seem surprising because birds’ brains are constructed in a
fundamentally different way from those of mammals, including primates – which
are usually used to investigate these behaviors.