New Caledonian Crow
Corvus moneduloides
This bird makes tools—and keeps the good ones safe.
New Caledonian Crows fashion hooked plant tools to retrieve food. They also keep tools secure between uses, holding them under a foot or putting them into a hole. In experiments, the birds were more likely to safeguard the efficient hooked tools than basic non-hooked ones. Apparently, leaving your best equipment lying around is for amateurs.
Tool Explorer
A crafted hook helps retrieve food. Worth hanging on to.
What's real?
New Caledonian Crows make hooked plant tools and safeguard tools underfoot or in holes. Experiments found greater safekeeping of efficient hooked tools. Both locations are valid; this is not evidence of human-like ownership, and no real files are saved.
There is more to protect than a species list.
Wildlife education can reveal the remarkable behaviors hiding behind a familiar-looking bird. Research on New Caledonian Crows explores how tools are made, used, and kept safe. The University of St Andrews' animal-cultures project is a place to learn about this richer view of animal life.
This is an education link, not a claim that these studies demonstrate a current loss of crow culture or an endangered population.
See the fieldwork, meet the researchers, or support bird science.
Explore animal cultures ↗Links go directly to conservation organizations.