An American crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos.
(Photo:Wikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 3.0)
Crows are incredibly smart.
A recent paper published inThe Journal of Neuroscienceexpands the wealth of knowledge on these clever creatures.
An American crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos. (Photo:Wikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 3.0)
In the study, researchers discovered that crows can comprehend the concept of zero.
Zero is actually a rather recent mathematical invention.
Many ancient number systems did not include a number conceptually equivalent to our modern-day zero.
Photo: MENNOSCHAEFER/DepositPhotos
This fact makes the crow’s newly discovered ability all the more impressive.
One dot fires a certain neuron, two another, three another, and four yet another.
It was therefore already known that crows could distinguish these quantities from one another.
The crows were trained to indicate if the two displays showed the same value.
While they did this, researchers monitored their brain activity.
When the crows saw zero dots, their brains fired a new neuron recognizing this new quantity.
Sometimes the birds made mistakes, identifying two displays as portraying the same quantity.
