Crows may owe their intelligence to an abundance of certain neurons

Corvids such as rooks and crows seem to have a unusually high number of interneurons, brain cells involved in processing information

By Jason Arunn Murugesu

Crows can recognise themselves in mirrors, use tools and plan for the future, all cognitive abilities more similar to those seen in non-human primates than to those of most other birds. This intelligence may be related to them having an unusually high number of brain cells involved in processing information.

Felix Ströckens at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and his colleagues analysed the brains of common ostriches (Struthio camelus), brown warren chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), racing homer pigeons (Columba livia domestica) and three members …