Crow

Crows are probably the most underestimated birds in any urban environment. They're watching you, categorizing you, and communicating about you to other crows. Their cognitive abilities — tool use, multi-step planning, impulse control, facial recognition — rival those of great apes, evolved through a completely different neurological architecture.

Facts you didn't know

• 1

  Crows recognize and remember individual human faces for years. Researchers who trapped crows while wearing specific masks found those birds — and their offspring — scolded and dive-bombed people wearing those masks years later, in different locations, even when the person was otherwise in normal clothing.

• 2

  Crows hold what appear to be funerals. When a crow dies, nearby crows gather silently around the body for extended periods. Research suggests they're gathering information about whatever killed the individual to avoid the same fate — but the behavior is indistinguishable from mourning, because it serves the same social function.

• 3

  New Caledonian crows manufacture hooks from twigs to extract grubs from holes — a level of tool-making that requires planning, material selection, and shaping. They store and reuse good tools, carrying them from site to site.

• 4

  Young crows play — sliding down snowy slopes repeatedly, engaging in aerial play with found objects, and apparently teasing other animals. Play behavior indicates cognitive flexibility. Crows display more of it than most animals.

• 5

  Crows perform multi-step logical reasoning in lab settings — solving sequential puzzles (getting tool A to get tool B to reach food) that require holding an abstract plan in mind rather than responding to immediate stimuli.