Meet the Birds That Can Outsmart Problems Like Primates

Research in recent times has supported the theory that corvids, which are a family of birds that comprises crows and ravens, have high-level cognitive abilities, which have earlier been considered to be possessed by primates alone. A review published in 2025 in Frontiers in Psychology refers to corvids as "feathered apes" and states that their ability to use tools and solve problems in a flexible manner is evidence of their high-level cognitive abilities. One of the most interesting cognitive abilities of corvids is their ability to plan ahead and think about future events. New Caledonian crows are able to select and use a series of tools to obtain food, which shows that they have a high level of foresight and goal-oriented thinking (National Geographic). Similar experiments with ravens have shown that they are able to select tools in advance of tasks they are to perform in the future.

The interesting thing is that crows can solve unfamiliar tasks without any prior training, as seen in research reported by the Royal Society. They have used available objects in novel ways to access food in a controlled experiment. This type of spontaneous problem-solving shows us that they have flexible cognition rather than simple trial-and-error learning. They have the remarkable ability to use tools, as seen in observations documented by ScienceAlert. They show that crows are able to create compound tools by combining multiple parts, which is a behavior that is rare outside humans and great apes. Neuroscientific work reported by Ars Technica further supports the fact that specific brain regions in crows become active during tool use, which indicates that there is a structured neural process behind these actions.

Ravens have the unique trait of reaching advanced cognitive milestones at a very young age (Psychology Today). They show certain abilities that are related to social understanding and physical reasoning that can be compared to adult great apes, just within a few months. This rapid development could suggest that their intelligence is strongly a biological factor rather than relying solely on experience. Similar patterns appear across the corvid family. It was seen in comparative observations that crows, ravens, and jays all show forms of memory and problem-solving (Ohio State University Tetrapod Zoology blog). The cognitive traits that underlie are consistent enough to suggest that there is a shared evolutionary pathway within the group, even if the degree may vary by species.

These findings have implications for our general understanding of the concept of intelligence. The fact that birds possess cognitive processes that are significantly advanced compared to other groups means that there is no need to think that advanced cognitive processes can only be found in structures that are completely different from the brain. As National Geographic puts it, "The existence of advanced cognition in birds argues that there is no single evolutionary route to intelligence and that it is not unique to mammals." The corvids are thus evidence that there is no need to think that intelligence is limited by brain size, as they are capable of planning and adapting, and are possibly one of the most intelligent creatures yet studied.