Crows in New Caledonia Make and Use Tools, Naturalist Says : SCIENCE FILE / An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment

Crows living in New Caledonia’s rain forests are as advanced as Stone Age humans when it comes to using tools, according to a New Zealand naturalist.

Reporting in Nature, Gavin Hunt of Massey University wrote that the birds stripped a twig of leaves, and sometimes bark, and cut it off just below a shortened offshoot to create a hook. They also used a barbed type of leaf that they cut to a pointed shape. Crows throughout the forest used the tools to dig insects out of crannies. Hunt said humans did not reach this degree of sophistication until the Lower Paleolithic era.