Why Ravens and Crows Are Earth’s Smartest Birds
And yet the more we study bird intelligence, the more those assumptions are breaking down. Studies have shown, for instance, that crows make tools, ravens solve puzzles, and parrots boast a diverse vocabulary.
Birds make good use of the allotted space for their tiny brains by packing in lots of neurons—more so than mammals, in fact. (Read: “Think ‘Birdbrain’ Is an Insult? Think Again.”)
“Being able to fly to Argentina, come back, and land in the same bush—we don’t value that intelligence in a lot of other organisms,” says Kevin McGowan, an expert on crows at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. “We’ve restricted the playing field to things we think only we can do.”
But if we’re talking about standard intelligence—ie. mimicking human speech or solving problems—“it always comes down to parrots and corvids,” McGowan says.
Members of the corvid family (songbirds including ravens, crows, jays, and magpies, to name a few) are among the most intelligent birds, though common ravens may have the edge on tackling tough problems, according to McGowan.
