See Why Ravens are the Brainiest of Birds

We’ve shown you some amazing videos of smart crows. It turns out ravens are not only bigger, they’re smarter too.

L. Kilham in The American Crow and Common Raven writes, “Ravens are, to enthusiasts like myself, at the top of the avian pyramid in mental attributes.”

Judge for yourself as you see what brainy critters they are in these 3 videos.

Genius Bird

Ornithologist Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont devised an experiment to show that ravens have the ability to make logical connections, much like human beings. He dangled food on a long string, something a raven would never encounter in the wild. See how the raven figures out how to get the food.

The next two videos, on pages 2 and 3, show more examples of raven cleverness, as they find creative ways to get food out of a tube. The tube on page 2 is pretty simple; the one on page 3 provides much more of a show.

Photo credit: Kashyap hc

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
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KS G.

12:27AM PDT on Oct 29, 2011

Thanks for the article.

send a green star

Past Member .

11:13AM PDT on Sep 11, 2011

Are you tired of hearing the raven croak, "nevermore"?

Ana T.

3:02AM PDT on Apr 12, 2011

Fascinating!!!

Camila K.

6:43AM PDT on Apr 6, 2011

amazing

5:03AM PDT on Apr 6, 2011

thank you so much! I think these birds are smarter than some humans I know.

Bon L.

5:44AM PDT on Apr 5, 2011

Thanks for the info.

Andrea N.

4:17AM PST on Mar 5, 2011

Really amazing! Thanks!

Mark H.

1:01AM PST on Feb 4, 2011

Our local owl flew down to us to tell us to turn out our deck light for hunting as his hunting partners the coyotes were coming down the trail!

minkie a.

1:39PM PST on Jan 4, 2011

Native Americans have always honored and said how smart they are. They use to watch what they ate and knew what berries NOT to eat becaue of them.

Thanks for the video!!!!!

Mel K.

8:04AM PST on Dec 19, 2010

Ravens are one of my favorite birds, they're so awesome!