Scientific American
Young Ravens Rival Adult Chimps in a Big Test of General Intelligence
At just four months of age, the birds performed equally well as great apes on understanding numbers, following cues and many more tasks
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Scientists and casual observers alike have known for years that ravens and their corvid relatives are extremely smart. But most studies use single experiments that provide a limited view of their overall intelligence. “Quite often, in single tasks, you’re just testing whether the bird can understand that you’re hiding something,” says Simone Pika, a cognitive scientist at Osnabrück University in Germany.