Crows are now smarter than the average undergraduate

By Jack Sharpen

It doesn’t take an ornithologist to know that corvids are smart. For any casual naturalist, clips of these clever creatures solving puzzles and outfoxing (or rather out-crowing) our saviour David Attenborough have been flying around on our screens and documentaries for years.

 If you’re a non-bird enthusiast, Corvidae are the family of birds containing crows, ravens, magpies, jackdaws and rook. Whilst they are common back garden sights for many of us, they possess mental capacities (specifically the Corvus genus) that have both amazed and intrigued behavioral ecologists in equal measure. 

This has led to a plethora of scientific publications on understanding the extent of attributes this avian bunch can achieve, with recent research proving they could be the next class of Manchester 2022.  

2:2 Total Re-caw

The first signs studied were Corvid’s remarkable use of tools, memory and abilities to solve problems. It’s been well recorded how rooks used a range of man-made tools to source food within the lab setting. This was then tested with natural resources by Caledonian crows, where they made hooks from plants and stems.

Their awesome source of clever creativity was further recorded in the wild for foraging. It isn’t just seen within the forest, as BBC wildlife showed just how canny crows are at cracking nuts in the modern suburbs. 

Lastly, these creatures also contain the capacity for an amazing long time memory, and can not only retain signs of danger but carry the message on. So next time you see a mischief of magpies, remember to salute them good morning; they surely won’t forget.

2:1 En par with Primates 

Crows and ravens are historically linked to prophecy, thought and ill omen. This might seem far fetched, but one thing for certain is that their smarts should make you wary. 

Bird evolution means they don’t possess the layered neocortex found in higher-functioning mammal brains. Regardless, corvus brains share the same brain mass % as we do. Recent insights have also shown that the complex neural development within their nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL), the bird equivalent to the prefrontal cortex, is associated with the advanced Corvid cognition. Combining this with the similar extended parenting seen, it likely explains why corvids can not only display referential gestures, the foundation of language in primates, but also being self aware. 

Corvids are one of the few non-mammals to show the hallmarks of consciousness regularly. This includes magpies passing the mirror test with flying colours (or rather black-and-white colours). Wth the use of consciousness comes the ability to create and have fun, such as skiing down rooftops. Maybe the old Aesop’s Fables and trickster legends are more veracious than fallacious?

1st Beating Bachelors

All of these outstanding aptitudes witnessed  have led onto recent revolutionary research. In conjunction with the new insights into neural development, academics at Skämt Institut in Skåne, Sweden performed a county-wide mental capacity test pitting 500 final year undergraduate students against 50 hooded crows raised in the lab. 

The group, led by Professor April Scherz, trained the crows to use touchscreen computers for answering questions, and were raised with the ability to visualise basic Swedish sentences. The students and corvids were then subjected to the same standardised tests for intelligence,  as well as a set of increasingly harder multiple choice questions (MCQs) from a range of subjects including maths, hard sciences and philosophy; half of students were randomly selected, and the other 50% were specialising within these topic areas.

The results were staggering: the crows consistently outscored students on intelligence tests by a significant margin, as well as outperforming students on the MCQs that they majored in. Professor Scherz commented that these preliminary scores could even qualify 90% of the crows for Mensa Sverige. 

With this in mind, it’s no wonder that the flight-footed family has been a source of  legend for millennia and continues to baffle scientific minds.  From Huginn and Muninn on Odin’s shoulders to the revered trickster in Northwest Pacific tribes, it’s probably no surprise that the ravens, crows, rooks and the rest are such a source of wisdom.  Perhaps they will become the next generation of researchers, as April Scherz’s group has begun to conduct similar experiments with postgraduates. It could be about time for the corvids to un-clip their wings and fly.

*Any resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, or other real–life entities, past or present, is purely coincidental.