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Bird brains like crows are smarter than chimps. http://www.cracked.com/article_19042_6-terrifying-ways-crows-are-way-smarter-than-you-think_p2.html
When someone mentions animals using tools, you probably think of chimps using blades of grass to get termites to eat, or maybe that dude with the unibrow who mows the neighbor's lawn -- but birds don't often come to mind. And they totally should: One early test of tool use and intelligence in crows had researchers tying a piece of meat to a string, and then tying that string to a stick. To a one, the crows all stood on the stick, grabbed the string, dragged it up, held it with their foot, and repeated the action until they could reach the meat. We know people right now that would fail that test (some of them are us).
Aesop had a story called "The Crow and the Pitcher," which goes like this: Crow wants some water from a pitcher, but he can't reach it, so he drops rocks into it until the water rises enough for him to get a sip. Now, Aesop is not generally considered a scientifically viable resource, at least not until the stuffy science world finally recognizes the validity of Fableology, but a recent test done on rooks (a small type of crow) showed that he may not have been far off. In the study, rooks were placed in a room containing a small pile of pebbles, then given a worm in a tube with water. And, because all good science is based on dickotry, they made sure the worm floated just out of the crow's reach.
Two of the birds took two attempts to figure out the trick, and the other two got it on the first try. Here's the really mind-blowing part: The birds didn't just figure out a crude behavior through trial and error; they dropped in stones only until the water was high enough to reach the worm, and went for the larger pebbles too, understanding that they would displace more water.
Which officially makes them smarter than most community college students
But that's nothing compared to the New Caledonian Crow: In another tube-based experiment, some food was placed in a little basket and then placed in a tube just out of reach of a crow named Betty. She and another crow, Abel, had two pieces of wire they could use to get the basket: One hooked, one straight. Abel grabbed the hooked wire and took off, while Betty took the straight piece, bent the wire into a hook and then used it to pull the basket out of the tube. This was not some trick Betty picked up through training. This was the first time she or Abel had ever encountered wire.
Then she wrapped it in some foil, poured some household chemicals over it and blew open the door.
When scientists attached small cameras to the tails of some New Caledonian crows, they discovered the birds were using sticks to get bugs out of trees. Typical bird stuff, right? Well, they also used stiff leaves and grass to manufacture knives, then used those knives to manufacture other tools. If the crows discovering how to makes shivs somehow doesn't scare you, surely the fact that they have discovered industry is cause to start rolling out the anti-raven zeppelins, right?
And oh god, there's more! NC crows passed yet another test involving hard to reach food. In this one, a crow was placed inside a container with a tiny stick, along with two small cages, one holding a piece of meat just out of reach, and one with a longer stick. The crow wasted no time in grabbing the small stick, using it to extract the long stick, then using the long stick to fish out the meat. Later, scientists locked a crow in a cage with a copy of Myst. Sadly, the game went unbeaten...but only because the crow said it prefers Professor Layton.
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