Crows using stones to displace water in a vessel to get a drink...
Crows Understand Displacement Better Than Six Year Olds | IFLScience
quote:
Logan used one wide and one narrow beaker of water with the same size lids. "The question is, can they distinguish between water volumes?" Logan said. "Do they understand that dropping a stone into a narrow tube will raise the water level more?" In a previous study the birds were not able to work out that it was more efficient to drop stones in the narrow tube in order to raise the water level.
However, Logan saw a flaw — the crows were given 12 stones, enough to raise the water level sufficiently in either tube. The only reason to prefer the narrow tube was that it was quicker. "When we gave them only four objects, they could succeed only in one tube -- the narrower one, because the water level would never get high enough in the wider tube, Logan says.
Under such circumstances the birds realized they needed to use their resources wisely, and most did so, putting the pebbles in the narrow tube.
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