A wild New Caledonian crow observes another using a stick to access insects for food. (Image credit: Jolyon Troscianko)
Crows spend most of their social time with family members, but when they need a little extra help to get some food – they’re not averse to enlisting others, according to researchers. New Caledonian crows are a clever group – a species known to use tools to get hard to reach food. Analyzing the activity and social interactions of 33 New Caledonian crows, the researchers found when there is a food source that requires a tool to exploit, these crows will leave their family group to interact with crows they’d never associated with before.
Original research paper published in Nature on November 3, 2015.
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