Crows possess higher intelligence long thought primarily human - STAT

Crows possess higher intelligence long thought primarily human - STAT

Why birds are so smart

Time to lay the ‘birdbrain’ stereotype to rest forever. Two studies have revealed that birds have a brain structure that is analogous to our cerebral cortex, and that brains of carrion crows ( Corvus corone) show signs of consciousness. Researchers worked with two carrion crows (named Ozzy and Glenn) in an experiment in which the crows had to keep track of what they had seen to receive a reward. The activity of the crows’ neurons showed that they had ‘sensory consciousness’: they knew what they had seen. A separate study of the neuroanatomy of birds found that a part of their forebrains — the pallium — does the heavy cognitive lifting that the cerebral cortex does in mammals.

STAT | 9 min read
Go deeper with an expert analysis by neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel in Science.Reference: Science paper 1 & Science paper 2