Are Crows the Ultimate Problem Solvers? | Inside the Animal Mind | BBC Earth

The meat is positioned so deep in the narrow box, it's out of reach of the crow's beak. But Alex has positioned a number of other objects nearby. The question is, can 007 use the tools available to solve the puzzle? Imagine that you're a crow. Here's your food in a deep hole. How would you go about, with the tools available to you on this table, solving this problem? The bird's tool kit includes a short stick hanging on a piece of string, three stones inside wooden cages, and a longer stick trapped in a plastic box. First, the crow must use the short stick to get the stones and then use all three stones to get the long stick. Now the crows can take this and probe it into the hole and roll, much better than I can, the food out of the hole, and get themselves a nice tasty reward. It's a complicated task. The crow is familiar with the individual pieces of the puzzle. He's done each of them separately for a food reward. But this is the first time he's seen them arranged like this. Eight separate stages that must be completed in a particular order if the puzzle is to be solved. If the bird succeeds, it'll be a world first. He takes time to have a look and then starts with the short stick. He finds it too short to reach the food. He then sets off to get the first stone. Got it! But he doesn't seem to know what to do with it. And another. He appears to be stuck. But now something seems to click. He dispatches the first stone, then returns to collect the last one. Got it! The final stage. Success. Eight individual stages complete. The crow performed all eight tasks in the correct order.

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 4,661,852

Keywords: crow puzzle solving, crow solving 8 step puzzle, crow puzzle, crows solving puzzles, crow solving puzzle, crows problem solving, crow problem solving, are crows the ultimate problem solvers, Crow (Animal), crow solves puzzle, smart crow solves an 8-step puzzle to get food, crow solves 8 step problem, crow intelligence test 8 steps, crow intelligence test, Inside the Animal Mind, crow intelligence, smart crow, bbc, bbc earth

Id: cbSu2PXOTOc

Length: 4min 9sec (249 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 10 2014