Crows prove they are no birdbrains

The first animal to make a tool for a specific task?

The crow is putting our closest cousins to shame.

Experiments show the humble bird is better than the chimp at toolmaking.

British zoologists were astonished when a captive crow called Betty fashioned a hook out of wire to reach food.

It is the first time any animal has been found to make a new tool for a specific task, say Oxford University researchers.

They believe the bird shows some understanding of cause and effect.

Experiments with primates, who are much closer relatives of humans than birds, have failed to show any deliberate, specific tool making

Alex Kacelnik, Oxford University

"It is not only cleverer than we think in this particular direction but probably, at least in relation to tools, has a higher level of understanding than chimpanzees," says Alex Kacelnik, Professor of Behavioural Ecology.

The Oxford team stumbled on the discovery while studying the behaviour of Betty and an older male crow, Abel.

Both belong to a crow species, Corvus moneduloides, from the French overseas territory of New Caledonia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.

Surprise snack

The researchers were testing whether the birds were able to lift food out of a vertical tube using either a straight piece of wire or a hook.

"The surprise came in trial number five when the male stole away the hook and flew to another part of the aviary," Professor Kacelnik told BBC News Online.

It is tempting to say that the bird used some kind of insight to access and solve the problem of extracting the food

Gavin Hunt, University of Auckland

He watched as Betty spontaneously bent a straight piece of wire and used it to retrieve a snack.

The researchers then repeated the experiment with just a straight piece of wire to see if it was a fluke.

Betty was able to bend the wire and get at the food nine times out of ten.

"Although many animals use tools, purposeful modification of objects to solve new problems, without training or prior experience, is virtually unknown," adds Professor Kacelnik.

He says experiments with primates, who are much closer relatives of humans than birds, have failed to show any deliberate tool making and human-like understanding of basic physical laws.

Animal insight

New Caledonian crows have been seen to make at least two sorts of hook tools in the wild.

Gavin Hunt of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, has studied them.

He said the behaviour of the young female crow was very interesting but not that surprising.

"It is tempting to say that the bird used some kind of insight to access and solve the problem of extracting the food, as humans often do in their toolmaking," he told BBC News Online.

"However, we need to carry out more experiments to see if this was the case."

Other birds have also shown surprising levels of ingenuity. The woodpecker finch of the Galapagos Islands uses a cactus spine to spear insects.

Pigeons have been known to recognise humans and letters of alphabet. Parrots, though, appear to be at the top of the pecking order.

Alex, an African grey parrot, hit the headlines in the 1980s. The bird had a vocabulary of 100 English words and was able to ask questions and make requests.

Full details of the Oxford University research are published in the journal Science.