Stone the crows: bird brains soar to top of the class

CROWS, rooks and jays may have bird brains but they can think like chimpanzees and humans, scientists said yesterday.

Researchers who reviewed studies of crow intelligence concluded that they had separately evolved the same kind of mental abilities as higher primates.

Crows belong to the family of corvids, which also includes rooks, jays, ravens and jackdaws. They have brains significantly larger than would be expected for their body size. In relative terms, a crow’s brain is as big as a chimpanzee’s.