In Norse mythology, the two pet ravens of the god Odin flew around the Earth each day, gathering information which they would then bring home to their master. In Ireland today, they say that to have a “raven’s knowledge” is to be wise in the ways of the world. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
Is there any basis to this legacy of lore? How intelligent are ravens?
“Now obviously all animals have intelligence in a sense that they do appropriate things under and solve problems but I think ravens also have intelligence in the sense where they figure things out and I’ve done some experiments with that, there are lots of anecdotes that suggest it.”
Bernd Heinrich is the author of the upcoming book: The Mind of a Raven: Adventures and Investigations with the Wolf-Birds.
“The type of intelligence that I’ve been interested in mostly is intelligence through insight by having mental concepts of appropriate choices. For example some ravens, when you give them a pile of crackers and they want to fly off with the crackers, they would take the cracker one on top of the other, pile them up and then grab the whole bunch and fly off with them. Now that seems to be a novel response that is difficult to envision being programmed to handle crackers in the wild. Now in another example I gave a bird a large chunk of fat and it cut a groove through the fat which cut a chunk of the fat off so it could fly off with the fat.”
Just as the ability to strategize is considered a sign of intelligence in humans, so it may also be with ravens. And if ravens use a variety of strategies to solve the problems that they encounter, it suggests that these birds have a surprisingly subtle awareness of the world around them.
Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.