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They also communicate knowledge across generations and across flocks. There is a particular mask that corvid researchers at University of Washington used for ex
by madhadron 7y ago
They also communicate knowledge across generations and across flocks. There is a particular mask that corvid researchers at University of Washington used for experiments. It hasn't been used for twenty years. If they bring it out, the flocks still recognize and respond to it, even though the birds who would have seen it are likely dead. Even wilder, birds miles away in the city also respond to it, so the information is being transmitted.
- stirfrykitty 7y agoI think we humans don't fully understand just how intelligent animals are. The ability to relay information across town rapidly is but one aspect, and it's fascinating. And they could do this while we were still wearing animal skins and carrying spears.
- throwanem 7y agoBeing fair, we could do the same thing, then. I tend to think it's down to the artificial distinction between "Man" and "Nature" that's infested our ways of thinking about the world for the last, oh, several hundred years at least, I suppose. That distinction may not have been invented for the purpose of supporting a sense of superiority, but that's the effect it has had, and I think it's long past time we disposed of it for the useless and actively harmful distortion of perception that it is.
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoThere is an Indian treatise in living called Brihat Samhita by Varahamihira. There is an entire chapter on crows and how to find omens from crow calls and determine weather from their flight path. I think humans have been observing crows/corvids for a very long time. I think they turn up in Norse mythology often too.