SMART CROWS!

["D.W.Naish" <dwn194@soton.ac.uk>]

Apparently, there's a bit in a recent (very recent?) Nature on tool-using in New
Caledonian crows. I have here a newspaper article on the whole thing, published
in Daily Mail of 18-1-96. Ecologist Gavin Hunt observed the crows making, using
and carrying around twig and leaf tools (some specially fashioned to serve as
hooks or blades), which they used to get bugs out of trees and in other little
crannies. All kinds of inferences made about how these activities bring the
birds a few notches up in intelligence, that kind of thing.

BIT MORE ON RAPTOR RED

What the hell is the dinosaur illustrated at the start of the chapter 'The
Cutting Edge of Bug Boppers'? I haven't a clue. 

Some of the things the animals did in the book were just too anthropomorphic -
putting their babies on their backs during a flood, for example. I thought it
particularly silly that the mother (Raptor Red's sister) wailed and visibly
shook with emotion when her youngest chick died. Last time I saw a lion cub die
the mother and other cubs ate it, and then played around with the head. However,
Bakker explains this by saying that crocodile mums get visibly distressed when
one of their babies dies. Hmm, I'll leave that one for the crocodile experts to
stab at. I have seen a gharial mother, though, bury a baby that she accidentally
trod on. Yeah - real emotion.

Note also that the animals seem to consciously hunt downwind of their prey (so
as to conceal their own scent). This again is based on a myth we've all read
concerning modern carnivores - that, if possible, they approach prey downwind
of it. Detailed studies of hunt behaviour in lion, serval and domestic cat, for
a start, show that the predators take *no account whatsoever* of wind direction.

Not that I didn't like the book or anything, it was fun. Oh yeah - Bakker uses
the term 'bulletin board' in there somewhere. Conclusion: the guy's familiar
with email. Yikes!!!

"See that stupendous dish over there?"
"Why thankyou Donatello" (blushing)
"No Irma... blah blah"

DARREN NAISH