Read a cross-cultural survey of crow-human relationships from HRAF

Check out the eHRAF World Cultures database for more research on animal-human relations, available to IU Bloomington users (on or off campus)

While the world of Western science has noted the intelligence of crows since the 19th century we are still continually surprised by their abilities as we discover them. Recent work by Dr. Sarah Jelbert et al. suggests that crows can remember the design of tools and re-make them from scratch using "mental templates." Since crows are not known to demonstrate mimicking behavior, this finding is important; mental templates may be a means for crows to have cumulative culture (like us!), in which they pass down and build upon knowledge.