Suspicious Rook Is Suspicious

Or, "Rooks have a remarkable aptitude for using tools, scientists have found."

Image thanks to the BBC.

Being open about our interest in crows has begun to pay off. Whenever our family and friends see anything corvid-related, they think of us. Even better: they buy it, or take a picture of it, or make a note of it, and send it to us.

Thus this article I just received from my dad, about tool use among ravens in captivity. Apparently they don't use tools in the wild, but in the lab, they're more creative than we thought:

Tests on captive birds revealed that they could craft and employ tools to solve a number of different problems.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, came as a surprise as rooks do not use tools in the wild.

Despite this, the UK team said the birds' skills rivalled those of well-known tool users such as chimpanzees and New Caledonian crows.