Humans wonder, anybody home?
Brain structure and circuitry offer clues to consciousness in nonmammals
By Susan Gaidos
One afternoon while participating in studies in a University of Oxford lab, Abel snatched a hook away from Betty, leaving her without a tool to complete a task. Spying a piece of straight wire nearby, she picked it up, bent one end into a hook and used it to finish the job. Nothing about this story was remarkable, except for the fact that Betty was a New Caledonian crow.
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Betty isn’t the only crow with such conceptual ingenuity. Nor are crows the only members of the animal kingdom to exhibit similar mental powers. Animals can do all sorts of clever things: Studies of chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins and birds have found that some can add, subtract, create sentences, plan ahead or deceive others.