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CNN Live Today

Scientific Evidence Crows Smarter Than Anyone Thought Possible

Aired August 09, 2002 - 12:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Farmers have always known that crows are extremely crafty creatures. Now there is some scientific evidence that may be even -- that those crows may be even smarter than anyone thought possible.
CNN's science correspondent Ann Kellan is here to tell us about Betty the crow, and Betty is super unique.

ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She is. And this is a sign of intelligence never seen in the animal world, except in humans, an animal actually making its own tools out of a substance it's not ever seen before in the wild. And Betty the crow -- let's take a look at this video, and there's actual video of it. She has a challenge of getting -- she has a wire, and she has to get food out of a bucket, right, and it's a straight wire.

And this research was published in the Journal of Nature, and the researchers Alex Castilnick (ph) from Oxford University, was flabbergasted at what you are about to see. Now, she says, OK, this wire is not working, so look, I'm going to have to bend it, so she actually makes it into a hook.

Now, they have never seen an animal do this. Animals do use tools, but she actually fashioned the hook. She did this nine out of ten times in the experiment, and she pulls out the food and there you have it.

WHITFIELD: What kind of elapsed time are we talking about?

KELLAN: It took her two minutes for her to do this. Oh, the discovery...

WHITFIELD: Once they placed these tools for it to use and to create a tool that was more handy, two minutes. Wow.

KELLAN: I know, what you saw. She just sort of figured it out. The fact it was wire and they had never seen. Now they used hooks with twigs in nature, but they'd never made a hook out of wire. So she had to figure out how this tool, or how this wire would work.

Now, what's funny is Able -- she had a male roommate, who they gave the same wire to. He was able to take the straight wire and poke the food once. He did that once, never did the hook deal. But he's stronger than she is, so he just stole her food, which is another sign of intelligence. He let her do all the work, and then took her food. But it's very funny. They don't know if she's just a unique critter. I'm sure they'll test this with a lot of other crows to see how smart they are.

WHITFIELD: Just the beginning stages.

KELLAN: Yes, it's sort of the beginning, but isn't that fun?

WHITFIELD: Oh, it is fun, and pretty fascinating, too. Never underestimate the abilities of the birds out there.

KELLAN: They're a lot of smart birds out there.

WHITFIELD: That's what Alfred Hitchcock has been saying all along.

OK, thanks very much.

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