Rook intelligence - link to Aesop fable?

imageOne of Aesop’s ancient fables involved a crow who was thirsty. The crow came across a pitcher of water, but the mouth of the jug was too small for him to fit his head through, and the level of water too low for him to reach. He dropped stones into the pitcher one by one to raise the level of water. The moral of the story being one of learning to solve problems bit by bit.

Scientists have found that rooks, relatives to crows, were able to intuitively use the same stone-dropping strategy to get at a floating worm. In previous scientific experiments in the past, rooks have already been shown to be capable of using tools to problem-solve. Cambridge University researchers exposed the rooks to a 6-inch-tall clear plastic tube containing water, with a worm on its surface. The birds used the stone-dropping trick spontaneously and appeared to estimate how many stones they would need. They learned quickly that larger stones work better. In another scenario they quickly realized that dropping rocks into a container of sawdust didn’t have the same effect.

The implications are of great interest to scientists and animal lovers alike. The level of problem-solving skills necessary to manipulate the physics of water displacement would seem to indicate a level of intelligence and insight that is strikingly high. Did Aesop’s original story come from a first-hand observation of in-the-wild behavior, then?

Read Aesop’s original fable online here:

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Aesop/Aesops_Fables/The_Crow_and_the_Pitcher_p1.html

Posted by Dennis on 08/06 at 08:49 PM