Weekend Birdery: The Rook and the Pitcher
In Aesop’s fable “The Crow and the Pitcher,” a thirsty crow finds a pitcher of water and tries to drink from it, but the water level is too low to reach with its beak. So the crow drops pebbles in the pitcher, one at a time, raising the water level to the top where the crow can drink it.
A study published last August shows that rooks (relatives of crows) are able to reach the same solution as the crow in the fable. In the video below, a rook is presented with a cylinder containing a worm floating on the surface of water that is below reach of the rook’s beak. When provided with some small stones, the rook carefully drops them in the cylinder until the water level rises enough for the rook to reach the worm.
Click to watch video at youtube.
Bird brains, indeed. Via Ed Yong.
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