PZ Myers — who I need to add to the blogroll — offers this video of a crow dismantling the barrier between us vaunted Homo sapiens and all those other, lesser animals. Yeehaw!
PZ’s description:
The crow has the job of lifting a bucket with a food reward out of the tube — and all it’s given to do the job is a straight piece of wire. Watch it make a hook in the wire so it can snag the handle of the bucket and lift it out.
Proper citation (thanks, Ian):
Shaping of Hooks in New Caledonian Crows
Alex A.�S. Weir, Jackie Chappell, Alex Kacelnik
Science, Vol 297, Issue 5583, 981 , 9 August 2002
That video is just wonderful. I’ve always thought that we just happened to acquire “sapiens” status first. Given enough time and “room”, I can think of a number of critters that just might have come up with their own space program.
Ravens and one particular Gray Jay have given me my favorite wilderness moments.
To give proper credit, that video is taken (probably without permission) from an article in Science a couple of years ago:
Shaping of Hooks in New Caledonian Crows
Alex A. S. Weir, Jackie Chappell, Alex Kacelnik
Science, Vol 297, Issue 5583, 981 , 9 August 2002
Ian