If we say that crows can count like humans, will you believe us? Actually, a research published in Science magazine said that there is a special breed of carrion crows which understand like humans. This is the reason why these crows are called winged monkeys.
These crows not only understand counting, but can also count them aloud like human children. These crows throw seeds under the wheels of vehicles running on the road to crack them. Apart from this, they also recognize human faces. Let us tell you the whole story about this research.
What was revealed in the research?
Diana Liao, a biologist at Germany’s Tubingen University, and her colleagues did a research on carrion crows. This research revealed that the understanding of these crows is very much like that of humans. This is the reason that when they were taught counting, they counted things in a similar way as a child does when he is being taught counting.
How did scientists teach counting
Diana Liao, a biologist at the University of Tubingen in Germany, and her colleagues started teaching these crows to count in order to understand their minds. First, the team taught them counting in Arabic and taught these crows to read from one to four. Different musical instruments were used to teach crows to count. For example, when the tune of a guitar was played, the crows would say one and when they heard the tune of a drum, they would say three. Scientists had to test the crows about a thousand times to teach them the correct counting.
Crows do not like these numbers
The research team tells Science magazine that we tried to go beyond three several times. But every time the number 4 came after three, the crows refused to count that number. Despite our repeated attempts, they did not like this number. When we tried harder, they also showed by pecking at the screen that they did not like this counting.
