Incredibly, four of the eight birds discovered the key to solving the puzzle within just five minutes. By combining two of the shorter sticks, the crows were able to reach the food and push it out of an opening at the other end of the box. A crow named Mango actually created tools featuring three or four parts, offering, according to the study, “the first evidence of compound-tool construction with more than two elements in any non-human animal.”
Alex Kacelnik, a behavioural ecologist at Oxford and one of the study’s lead researchers, tells BBC News’ Gill the findings subvert the idea that animals “try everything at random and improve by reinforcement.” Instead, he argues that the crows, which received no demonstration or aid throughout the experiment, were able to predict the properties of a tool not yet in existence.
“So they can predict what something that does not yet exist would do if they made it,” Kacelnik explains. “Then they can make it and they can use it.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-caledonian-crows-can-assemble-compound-tools-180970630/
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