Clever Corvids: hooked tools & saving them (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 23, 2015, 15:55 (3258 days ago) @ David Turell

Using tiny cameras crows are observed fashioning the hooks and there is evidence they save them:-http://phys.org/news/2015-12-crows-caught-camera-fashioning-special.html-"The pair developed tiny video 'spy-cameras' which were attached to the crows, to observe their natural foraging behaviour.-"They discovered two instances of hooked stick tool making on the footage they recorded, with one crow spending a minute making the tool, before using it to probe for food in tree crevices and even in leaf litter on the ground.-***-"'In one scene, a crow drops its tool, and then recovers it from the ground shortly afterwards, suggesting they value their tools and don't simply discard them after a single use." According to Rutz, this observation agrees with recent aviary experiments conducted by his group: "Crows really hate losing their tools, and will use all sorts of tricks to keep them safe. We even observed them storing tools temporarily in tree holes, the same way a human would put a treasured pen into a pen holder."-***-"They can use their bills to whittle twigs and leaves into bug-grabbing implements; some believe their tool-use is so advanced that it rivals that of some primates."