I never really paid attention to crows in the past, but I always knew that they’re associated with death. Well, in some cultures that is. But it turns out these mythical raven cousins are much cooler than I thought. Let’s take a look at 13 cool facts about crows that don’t include death – in a negative way.
1. Crows Make and Use Tools
Crows are one of the amazing animals that use tools. They don’t build houses with saws and hammers, but they’ve got some unique skills when it comes to making and using their own tools. New Caledonian crows collect twigs that they sharpen to make little hooks. They use these hooks to fish for spiders and grubs and to scoop larvae from holes. Other crows forage in a similar way but they use the entire stick to find hidden food in tight spaces.
2. Crows Have Unique Food Finding Ways
Crows don’t sit around and wait for food to come around. They use their DIY tools and their fantastic memories to secure their next meal. If they find too much food, they’ll even hide them for the next hunger pangs and then come back to find it.
They’re also smart enough to know that nuts will crack open if they drop them and that prey gets distracted if they mimic other animals. What’s more, they also follow humans with food because they know they’ll leave scraps behind at some point. Another thing that works in their favor is their exceptional eyesight because they’ll spot the tiniest insect on the ground while soaring high.
3. Crows Can Solve Puzzles
There’s are many differences between crows and ravens but one similarity is their ability to solve puzzles. They have advanced mathematical skills and scientists actually compare a crow’s intelligence with that of a 7-year-old child’s. They can solve both slider and glass puzzles and carry water to a bowl of dry mash to make it edible. They also break pieces of pine cones and twigs to drop on tree climbers near their nests.
4. Crows Have Funerals
Crows are intelligent and intelligence comes with other personality traits like empathy and sympathy. When they find a dead crow on their path, they’ll perform a social ritual that resembles a human funeral. They’ll send out an alarm call to all the other crows close by and wait for them to gather around the fallen one. Then, they caw and dive at the corpse. They’ll even peck and pull at the corpse as if it was alive and attacking them.
5. Crows Have Regional Dialects
Different crows from different places have unique dialects and voices. Crows that live west of the Cascade Mountains have lower-pitched and harsher calls than the rest of the crows in the US. The same goes for the rest of the crows that live all over the world. The dominant members of crow groups usually have a distinct call, and all new members will learn this dialect.
6. Crows Have Massive Brains
OK, we’ve now established that crows are smart. Like really smart. But did you know that their brains are really big compared to other birds. A raven’s brain – as well as human’s – takes up around 2% of their body mass. A crow’s brain takes up 2.7% of their body mass. It doesn’t sound like that big of a difference but in a bird that small, it actually does. I guess their intelligence makes sense now.
7. Crows Can Remember Faces
If you recently crossed a crow, they’ll remember you for years to come. They can remember the faces of humans that put them in stressful situations and distinguish between good and bad humans. They’ll hold a grudge for up to 17 years. Yes, 17 full years! Crows pass these grudges on to the next generations, and they’ll get their revenge at some point. They’ll even take on an entire community linked to negative experiences. It’ll be much better to befriend crows to avoid them stalking and attacking you in the future.
8. Crows Have a Unique Group Name
Yes, I know I said these facts don’t involve death but here I am including a second death-related fact. Technically, this one involves murder. You’ve probably heard this fact before because it’s never left out of a list of interesting facts, is it? But it’s always good to brush up on your crow facts.
The collective noun for a group of crows is a murder. Yes, a murder of crows. This comes from that nasty connotation of crows and death. Because of this and the fact that crows don’t represent the underworld, scientists and bird lovers would prefer that you don’t use murder. Maybe it would be better to stick to the regular bird collective noun, which is a flock. A flock of birds or a flock of crows sound much better.
9. Crows Mate for Life
Some animals are monogamous but the truth is that no species can be 100% monogamous. Crows are socially monogamous but genetically promiscuous. Don’t worry, I also frowned at that one. It means they mate for life but male crows only father 80% of their family’s offspring. If they’re injured, this number will be even lower.
10. Crows Gossip
If you ever did something questionable with a crow watching, you may be feeling pretty awkward real soon. These curious birds don’t just like to observe human activity, but they also spread the story faster than People Magazine. They’ll run along with something juicy and share it with other crows in their social group. They’ll also warn other crows if they’ve come across a dangerous human or animal recently. If you ask me, this is just one of the reasons why crows don’t make good pets. They’ll let the entire neighborhood know what you had for dinner last night.
11. Crows Are Great at Planning Ahead
Crows and their close relatives, like ravens and jays, can plan ahead. They use this skill to their advantage to ensure that they’ve got food at a later time. They mentally visualize a sequence of actions or steps that they need to take to solve problems. For instance, they’ll remember where they left their tools and then plan their moves ahead to reach a desired outcome. They’ll also choose a smaller reward now if it means they’ll get a bigger reward later.
12. Crows Can Talk
Don’t get me wrong – crows can’t learn to speak like parrots. They can’t initiate a conversation or communicate their thoughts or feelings. They can only mimic human speech. So, they’re technically just copycats. In fact, they can copy more than 100 different sounds. This isn’t limited to human speech because they can copy other birds or animals (even bullfrogs!) as well as objects like vehicles and alarms. Sometimes I think the reason why birds imitate sounds is just to mess with us.
13. Crows Don’t Love Shiny Things
Let’s end this list by busting a popular myth. Crows don’t love shiny things, and they certainly aren’t attracted to them. There’s no evidence that crows spend any time looking for shiny objects in the wild but they’re curious birds. If you spot a crow looking at something shiny, it’s out of pure curiosity. It’s possible that this myth comes from a confusion between crows and magpies. They may be closely related but magpies are more attracted to shiny things.
