‘The Crow and the Pitcher’ more fact than fable

The Crow and the Pitcher, a very famous frictional fable by Aesop’s that each and everyone of us have heard in our childhood. If you remember, the tale revolves around a thirsty crow, which uses stones to elevate the level of water in a jug to satisfy its thirst.

Surprisingly, this fable was more of facts than fiction. New research and studies demonstrate that rooks, members of the corvid/crow family are capable of resolving difficult troubles using tools like stones. Christopher Bird, of the University of Cambridge, along with a group of researchers led this study.

*Bird highlighted the importance of his results stating,

‘Corvids are remarkably intelligent, and in many ways rival the great apes in their physical intelligence and ability to solve problems’

This statement was so unique and different because the brains of the rooks is not at all similar to that of the apes. But, for this folklore to be proven, a more scientific approach with a series of empirical tests and studies was done to show the extent of their cleverness.

The first experiment conducted was based on the variation of the height of water in a tube containing a worm floating. Four rooks were put into this test and were given stones in order to reach the worm. The clever birds proved to be highly successful regardless of the starting level of water or the size of stones, with two of them showed positive results in their first try while the other two required a second try.

The successful birds did not only complete their task with high speed, but also showed a tremendous amount of accuracy in their ability, adding the exact number of stones required to reach the worm. Rather then trying to reach the worm after every stone thrown inside, they calculated beforehand the approximate number of stones needed to complete the task, waited for the appropriate level of water, before dipping their beaks into the tube to reach the worm.

The second experiment was even more astonishing. This time they were provided with varied sizes of stones. At this time, they selected larger stones over smaller ones. It was astounding to find this type of result were rooks understood the concept of displacement. However, this was not done directly by the rooks, but upon trying they realized that larger stones displaced more water.

In the final experiment, a tube with half filled water and another one with half filled sawdust was given to the rooks to reach the worm. Surprisingly, the rooks recognized that sawdust cannot be manipulated the same as how water did. Hence, they chose the tube with water to drop in the stones and ignored the one with saw dust.

This study did prove that this was more of facts than fiction. It clearly exhibited the adaptable nature of rooks in utilizing tools, however they were not considered to make use of tools in the wild because they didn’t need to, not because they can’t, having access to food.

Through Aesop’s fable and Bird’s study, we can definitely say that necessity is the mother of invention.

*source from science news, wayback machine website