![]() ![]() In the first "fair" phase of the experiment, a trainer at one end of a cage gave a bird a piece of bread crust, which it carried in its mouth to the opposite end of the cage-where it was offered to a second researcher's outstretched hand in exchange for cheese. Using nine ravens, researchers taught the birds to trade a small crust of bread for a more tasty piece of cheese. ![]() The ravens were raised in captivity to make them less fearful of people and so they could be trained to trade tokens for rewards. The ravens for the study were hand-raised by Massen and other researchers. Understanding how they make choices, he explained, "gives us insights into the evolution of intelligence." "This sort of cooperation is a part of complex social life," said Massen. Co-author Jorg Massen is a post-doc at the University of Vienna specializing in cognitive biology. The study was conducted by researchers from the Lund University in Sweden, the University of Vienna in Austria, and others. Some ravens, it seems, even know the art of making a deal.Ī new paper published in the journal Animal Behavior tested how well a raven could judge a deal that was "fair" or "unfair." They can remember individual human faces, expertly navigate human environments ( like trash cans), and they even hold funerals for their dead. Ravens and other members of the corvid family (crows, jays, and magpies) are known to be intelligent.
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