r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/EmptySpaceForAHeart • Jun 10 '23
Ravens have been shown to have the intelligence of 7yr old children and often have similar mannerisms as well. Video
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u/DeafBeaker Jun 10 '23
The worm is very human
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u/_DARVON_AI Jun 10 '23
“Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.”
― Carl Sagan
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u/Mysterious-Laugh-776 Jun 10 '23
Ingrid Newkirk a founder of PETA said “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy” which used to strike me as too extreme but I more and more think that is right.
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u/EvaUnit_03 Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
The problem with PETA is the same as with religious zealotry. Fanaticism is never a good look. I agree with a large chunk of their ideology but you can't force those who don't want to believe/accept it unless you make laws from it which is a slippery slope. Also forcing those ideas onto animals is torture, like the lion they made vegan. They, like us, still need quality sources of protein which largely comes from other animals. And if we can salvage and not waste animal parts, we should. A lion won't make a coat out of a gazelle, but we can and will. Game hunting is bad and a huge part of why hunting gets a bad rap. But we shouldn't factory farm animals and cull baby chicks in a grinder alive, that shitis brutal. And the less about animals testing i see, the better because its also cruel. The only other option is human testing and the nazis showed us how cruel that can go...
Also PETA has gotten in trouble with their members being zoophiles and anyone who tells you "my dog likes it when i have sex with it" or "my horse and I bond so well when he mounts me" does not have the animals best interest at heart and are just a different kind of pervert. Its one thing to be a furry and/or pretend to be an animal or even have interest in 'feral furry hentai' but it crosses a big line when you make that happen IRL and molest/rape an animal.
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u/Altruistic_Product61 Jun 10 '23
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u/EvaUnit_03 Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
I watch peta like I watch religious groups, fascist groups, and any other group that try to hinder my already hindrance burdened life. for every good thing these groups do, they do half a dozen things that most sensible people view as abhorrent.
Gotta be prepared to fire back at them when they say 'YoU jUsT dOnT uNDeRsTaNd". And its fun to watch when the leopards show up to eat their faces.
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u/Altruistic_Product61 Jun 10 '23
I understand and agree with nearly everything you stated in your previous comment. Also had a chuckle at the specificity in the second paragraph.
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u/Luchin212 Jun 10 '23
The Lord Leto gave up his humanity long ago, to pursue his golden path.
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u/Nesneros70 Jun 10 '23
Reminds me of us as children hanging by the mouth from the fingers of our relatives.
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u/A_Night_Awake Jun 10 '23
What incredible bird lives we’ve lead. And my gracious it’s been way too many years since our dangling.
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u/achingbrain Jun 10 '23
Before readings, we always become more adept once our beaks are sore. Jolly good.
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u/Mauwnelelle Jun 10 '23
Personally I enjoyed hanging from the balcony railing. It was both fun and exhilarating!
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u/PunkToTheFuture Jun 10 '23
Bravo, you've cause me to break the audible code. I've woken the wife and gotten "the look". Somehow makes it funnier/worse
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u/zakkalaska Jun 10 '23
Well that's a r/BrandNewSentence if I've ever fucking seen one.
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u/TheNotSoGreatPumpkin Jun 10 '23
Remember that one time when you were pecking at the roadkill’s entrails and the jerk with the truck swerved right at you?
Rites of passage make us who we are.
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u/Doctor_of_Recreation Jun 10 '23
Your comment unlocked a memory of kid me having my parents lift me off the ground using my back-most belt loop.
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u/Arreeyem Jun 10 '23
I'll never not smile seeing parents do the thing where they swing the child while walking. My parents did it for me all the time and I remember absolutely loving it.
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u/TWSREDDIT Jun 10 '23
Oh you saw GWAR live too? Pretty amazing show.
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u/ThisIsALine_____ Jun 10 '23
I saw them in 2006-ish (beyond hell) really was the greatest concert I've ever seen.
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Jun 10 '23
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u/ThisIsALine_____ Jun 10 '23
I saw them at the Hollywood House of Blues. Which is a tiny venue. Saw a bunch of people dressed in white pants and white shirts. Didn't understand why at first.
It was super hot in the venue.
First song starts, oderus walks out, decapitates a guy, and he sprayed refreshing green blood out onto the crowd.Municipal Waste also opened.
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u/CantDoThatOnTelevzn Jun 10 '23
One of my biggest misses. Had a chance to see them in early 2000s. Whiffed it.
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u/Molotov_Meatball Jun 10 '23
Mmm fingers. So tasty. It's a shame this Is no longer socially acceptable as an adult.
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u/tangledwire Jun 10 '23
There’s always toes…
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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u/Molotov_Meatball Jun 10 '23
Don't get me started on the toes. Uncle gave me a black eye for those Thanksgiving under the table shenanigans. Worth it.
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u/Kylgannon Jun 10 '23
Goddamnit I’m going to miss Reddit because of absolutely stunning comments like this
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u/tiktaktok_65 Jun 10 '23
now does age of ravens impact their intelligence?
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u/fuzzygreentits Jun 10 '23
So do many of the adults I work with, so maybe ravens would be a good alternative
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u/-Reader91- Jun 10 '23
And ravens will leave you shiny stuff if you feed them (either that or crows, i keep forgetting)
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u/1D6wounds Jun 10 '23
Isn't it Magpies?
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Jun 10 '23
I’ve seen some of the 7 years olds in my community. This statement is an insult to ravens.
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Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
I had a pet crow. I rescued him from some kids who broke his wing by throwing rocks. He used to surprise me daily with the crazy things he would figure out. He slept in a locking dog crate and he actually figured out how to open the latch and let himself out, but he would just open the door then wait politely until we got up to leave the crate lol. He'd also torture our cats and lay traps for them... like he'd put his sleeping blanket on top of his crate so the cat would walk on it and get it's feet stuck in the rungs, then he'd peck their feet!
He loved getting his head patted and neck scratched just like our dogs, and would sometimes fall asleep if you did that.
My parents also had an African Grey parrot and the crow had a larger vocabulary than the parrot. He'd ask for food, tell us he loved us and stuff. The difference was he seemed to completely understand what he was saying... using the words appropriately in context, unlike the parrot who just seemed to well... parrot stuff.
Best pet I ever had. RIP buddy. Sniff...,
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u/twobitcopper Jun 10 '23
Knew an ancient old woman years ago. The first thing in the morning she would venture into her back yard and wave her towel. A murder of crows was waiting for her in the trees being quite noisy. After her appearance they would quiet down, flying off after a few minutes. The same in the evening.
I was fascinated as a kid to watch this old lady delight in her “friends” congregate to wish her good morning and good night, as she put it. I remember when she died. The rowdy murder of crows grew somber and a quiet wailing ensued that lasted for days. You sensed they knew she had died.
Time after I would catch one or two in the trees by her house calling for their old friend. Yea, I’d say these creatures are extraordinary.
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u/Endless_Xalanyn6 Jun 10 '23
Medieval People: “Ravens are so scary! They mean death and eat people.”
Modern Ravens:
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u/Background-Apple-920 Jun 10 '23
That is soooo Raven. 🤭🤭🤭🤭
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Jun 10 '23
I have never linked that sub ever before in 10+ years of using Reddit. You should feel extremely honored.
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u/JustaNormalRedditorL Jun 10 '23
I have never linked that sub ever before in Almost a year of using Reddit. You should feel honored.
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u/Opposerf Jun 10 '23
What does this comment mean? Some one explain please
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u/dream_focused1103 Jun 10 '23
That’s so Raven was a tv show back in the day (as in like late 90’s maybe?)
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u/zenobe_enro Jun 10 '23
"Back in the day". Don't do that to me, I grew up on that show.
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u/psyilocyler Jun 10 '23
Seriously! “Late 90’s” like it was two decades ago or something !?!
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u/aaronjamt Jun 10 '23
Well fortunately for you, it's not... anymore...
Sorry to break it to you
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u/zenobe_enro Jun 10 '23
Saw a video of the animatronic t-rex used in Jurassic Park earlier. The title mentioned the movie was released 30 years ago today in 1993... And it was posted in r/OldSchoolCool. I gotta lie down.
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u/doom_stein Jun 10 '23
I've felt the same way these last few weeks. Saw the new Mortal Kombat 1 on Summer Game Fest and felt the old kick in when they said it was the 30th anniversary of the Mortal Kombat series.
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u/IwishIwasBailey Jun 10 '23
Mid 2000's. I thought the same as you. Had to look it up.
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u/Tweedleayne Jun 10 '23
The show is old enough that it's now received a reboot staring adult Raven raising her also psychic teenage son.
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u/zomboromcom Jun 10 '23
Does... does he like that? Or has he been trained to do this for a reward?
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u/EmptySpaceForAHeart Jun 10 '23
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u/wrechch Jun 10 '23
Yeah they're goofy and all have different senses of humor. Go watch some crows and ravens whenever you get an opportunity. Watch them long enough and realize that their intelligence is actually quite unnerving.
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u/frank26080115 Jun 10 '23
They play football with rocks and sticks, like quidditch in real life
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u/SorryWhatsYourName Jun 10 '23
Is that american football or european football? Because the moment I see 22 ravens in full armor running with an egg shaped rock and kicking it though the goal, I'm running.
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u/TheVisceralCanvas Jun 10 '23
Well, given that birds typically don't have arms, you could make the reasonable assumption that they're talking about football football (i.e. what the rest of the world calls football and not "soccer" as it's known in North America).
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u/GetGroovyWithMyGhost Jun 10 '23
Soccer in Australia too. Afl is football here lol
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u/WeinMe Jun 10 '23
It's weird how the two countries in the world with the largest prisoner populations agree on this
Coincidence?
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u/pchlster Jun 10 '23
When I was entering Australia the guy at the airport asked me if I had a criminal record. I said no, is that still required?
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u/CX316 Jun 10 '23
The term soccer was invented by the English because even England has both soccer and rugby, Australia has like five different games called football, so the term helps to differentiate for people
also works great to weed out the people who can’t resist the urge to have a go about calling it soccer
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u/E_rat-chan Jun 10 '23
Yeah, I remember that Mark Rober squirrel video where a crow could easily reach the food by flying (which was meant for the squirrels) but just took the parkour course instead.
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u/Beard_of_Maggots Jun 10 '23
I've noticed while driving that most birds on the road will panic as the car approaches, flying away as fast as they can. Crows however will just hop over to the other lane
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u/Zuchenko Jun 10 '23
Apparently birds view time(?) at a higher frame rate than us, so a car driving towards birds is from their perspective travelling slower than we would perceive it.
Could be wrong but I think this is right.
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u/Chxkn_DpersRtheBest Jun 10 '23
I remember they’d unzip our bags and lunchboxes and eat our food when I was in primary school. Really smart animals
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u/sh4d0wm4n2018 Jun 10 '23
Nevermore! By Edgar Allan Poe is also kinda unnerving when you take the time to conte.plate that poem.
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u/TheObviousChild Interested Jun 10 '23
It’s titled “The Raven”. Definitely agree with your point though.
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u/broken-biscuits177 Jun 10 '23
Omg... I saw a raven caw outside my window on a powerline and then it let its claws go just enough to flip upside down and hung there like clothes on a line for a few seconds before flying away! I didn't realise they were playing.
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u/TheDefenestratedDodo Jun 10 '23
Ravens and crows are extremely fucking intelligent, you bet this fucker is just feeling like hanging from a hooman's finger at this particular moment for whatever reason
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u/wobble_bot Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
They’re known to recognise and remember humans, and then communicate if they’re a friend or foe to other members of their group. If you cross a raven you’re likely to have made an enemy of the whole group.
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u/Shadowex3 Jun 10 '23
You're talking about something that's intelligent enough to teach other crows who's friendly or not and alter objects to create tools. He's not going to do it if he's not getting something out of it, intrinsic or otherwise.
I mean just try getting a 7 year old to do something they don't want to.
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u/Lost_And_Found66 Jun 10 '23
Baltimore Ravens fans also have the intelligence of 7 year old children.
Ayoooo
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u/nicos6233 Jun 10 '23
Never more, never more.
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u/Ok_Composer3531 Jun 10 '23
Funny enough, most of them aren’t literate enough to read your comment and get mad.
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u/theboyshua Jun 10 '23
7 years old?!?! C’mon, people keep moving the goal posts on animal intelligence, you’re saying ravens are smashing me in call of duty
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u/McMaster2000 Jun 10 '23
Yeah, 7 seems way too much unless we're talking about a very specific small range of intelligence (presumably solving certain simple puzzles, or something along those lines). Certainly not in overall intelligence.
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u/Granny_Gumjobss Jun 10 '23
I mean if someone told me a raven had learned it's multiplication tables and could do simple math I wouldn't be terribly surprised.
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u/gamma55 Jun 10 '23
They’re smart enough not to, because math is just a gateway drug to bleak adult life in the rat wheel.
They’re smarter than most 25-year old humans.
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u/Zuchenko Jun 10 '23
Yeah I think it’s as you say. Still unbelievably impressive. The water displacement puzzle is they can solve without ever seeing it beforehand is amazing.
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u/redlines4life Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
Like a kid just hanging from some monkey bars
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u/Clintonsoldmedrugs Jun 10 '23
Raven? Clearly a jackdaw or crow
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u/RavenLunatic512 Jun 10 '23
Don't tell u/Unidan
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Jun 10 '23
Unidan is a name I haven‘t heard in a long time, I can‘t even remember what he was known for on here
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u/-oRocketSurgeryo- Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
https://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/2byyca/comment/cjb37ee/
It's become a copypasta. Unidan is famous for having created alt accounts to lend support to his position.
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u/First_Explorer_5465 Jun 10 '23
Hey, th we y are good to have on your side. Like a crow, they don't forget faces and how they were treated!
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u/CrewLong Jun 10 '23
I think we have too high opinion of the average 7yo's intelligence.
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u/WaitUuseRedditYorSad Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
These motherfuckers keep swooping me! This never happened to me in QLD but the buggers in Sydney are out for blood. Why?
EDIT: Guys. I know what I'm talking about. For 3 months straight I rode my bicycle to and from work in a country town past many large trees that were swarming with magpies and plovers. I have been swooped many times. I know the difference between a magpie and a raven. Yes twas the ravens(or maybe crows) that were swooping me.
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u/cuihmnestelan Jun 10 '23
If it's not against any bylaws, feed them when you're near where you got swooped. Talk to them when you see them. It won't happen again.
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u/OriginalLamp Jun 10 '23
Was gonna say, give them a peace offering. They wont just remember your face, they'll tell their friends. They can actually do that because corvids are amazing.
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u/calf Jun 10 '23
I had one in the backyard swoop at me over several days, because I had sprayed at it to get away from my strawberry patch. I had also put netting over the patch, so it got extra mad at me because it could no longer access the fruits.
Finally I made it an offering of strawberries on the grass, and the next day it did not show up.
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u/OriginalLamp Jun 10 '23
Just reinforcing what buddy said: give them a peace offering and they won't just remember your face, they'll tell their whole community. Not even kidding.
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u/nicos6233 Jun 10 '23
Isn’t Australia the place where everything is trying to kill you?
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u/discard333 Jun 10 '23
Sure it's not magpies? Bastards are territorial as hell
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u/WaitUuseRedditYorSad Jun 10 '23
It's definitely ravens/crows. I know the difference
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u/Beflijster Jun 10 '23
I presume it is the Australian magpies that are bothering you. They aren't corvids like the European and American magpies are! They are in a different family, and they are notorious for their swooping behaviour during the breeding season. Here's some advice.
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u/platyboi Jun 10 '23
Can’t wait until i next meet a 6 year old so I can inform them that they are dumber than a raven.
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u/Eviltechnomonkey Jun 10 '23
I'm always amazed with how truly big ravens and crows can be. I saw my first raven while in Japan and this raven was trying to tear into some guy's backpack. He was too afraid to try to shoo it away. I wasn't, but I get why he was. It was massive. It stood at least as tall as his backpack.
There is a bald eagle nest camera I like to watch and the ravens often look like they aren't much smaller than the bald eagles.
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u/yallnevercatchme Jun 10 '23
Scared?? Just tell them “no” and move it away, they are not gonna fight you for it. However, if you wanna make a friend, give it some snacks on the side and next time they’ll keep away. If you’re lucky and give them snacks a few times, you might even get a gift back 😌 (We had a tame crow when I grew up, he was friends with the other crows that we fed and we had gifts from them multiple times on our terrace.)
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u/The_Pandalorian Jun 10 '23
Would a raven store nuclear secrets in a resort bathroom or nah
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u/Snazzy21 Jun 10 '23
No that would be the cuckoo bird. AKA the bird that deceives others into caring for it even though it destroyed their family
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u/skilalillabich Jun 10 '23
Quite often I've seen them gather in a school yard near my house. Some 15 to 30+. Then make a circle while one at a time one enters the middle and it's like they are telling a story taking turns. It is pretty cool
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u/ForgiveAlways Jun 10 '23
I’ve never seen a 7 year old get swung around by it’s mouth. I’m from a small town though.
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u/ImmaMichaelBoltonFan Jun 10 '23 edited Jun 10 '23
Yeah. Ravens are smart. I interact a lot with them and crows in my area (they coordinate efforts to get into my garbage. They post sentries to look out for me and then signal their diggers to clear out once I try and sneak out of the house).
Impressive. But there's no fucking way they come even close to the intelligence of an average 7 year old. The complexity of thought in a human being at that age is -with the exception of my childhood friend Michael- mind-blowing.
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u/journey_bro Jun 10 '23
7 y/o was third grade for me. It's wild that people think a raven could read and learn and do the things I was reading and learning and doing at that age.
The reality of course is that these comparisons rely on a very narrow set of skills that people typically don't develop till 7. It's weird to make such broad statements based on a handful of problem solving skills that the birds develop before 7 y/o humans, when the 7 y/o can process so many more other things that the birds can't.
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Jun 10 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/essdoubleU Jun 10 '23
I was thinking the same thing.. like maybe it has the intelligence of a 7 yo in some instances, but I doubt we're talking overall here
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u/_Abiogenesis Jun 10 '23
yeah that analogy is not the best.
That's not how it works. It's also not IQ. It serves as a reference point to help us picture some of the cognitive tasks that ravens are capable of. It's not intended to suggest that ravens possess the same overall cognitive capacity as a child (nor that kids have a raven's for that matter - they surpass children in other tasks yet will never acquire full-blown language).
It's impossible to apply an intelligence test across species because an animal's skill at problem-solving, memory, and awareness depends on its body shape and habitat as much as on its brain. It's just that, even by the same standards used to measure human intelligence, corvids are smart to the point of tools and culture, a rarity among animals.
Intelligence is a multidimensional highly subjective concept, and different species have evolved distinct cognitive adaptations that suit their own ecological niches. A brain is as good as it needs to be to get by. some animal brains need insane computational power for things we can't do. kids don't need spatial awareness to fly at 70kmh in a 3-dimensional space and don't need to learn culturally dependent beak based foraging tips from non-speaking parents for 300 different type of edible foods based on their UV reflection and who to steal and hide it from.
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u/_felagund Interested Jun 10 '23
Thank you, great explanation. Orangutans have better short term visual memory than average human (I.e hidden numbers on monitor experiment) but that doesn’t mean they are more intelligent than us.
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Jun 10 '23
Ravens also understand the concept of water displacement, which most 7 year olds haven't grasped yet.
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u/yes11321 Jun 10 '23
I'm sorry but I don't remember biting someone's hand and hanging from it when I was seven. Did I miss our or?
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Jun 10 '23
If you’re interested in learning about ravens look up Betty and Abel, these birds were owned by a researcher who did a lot of (ethical) experiments and observations. Some really cool stuff that shows just how smart these birds are!! In fact most bird are really smart - pigeons, parrots, and crows especially!
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u/7elevenses Jun 10 '23
Ravens have been shown to have the intelligence of 7yr old children
If your 7-year old has the intelligence of a raven, that's not exactly normal.
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u/MaxMadisonVi Jun 10 '23
I must have read somewhere they mourns death in funerals like rituals, have the sense of prank people and their mates, and ultimately know how to trade in exchange of food. A guy trained one to retrieve cash notes and he earns well.
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u/digitalkamikaze Jun 10 '23
I have to stop leaving my iPad outside then before one of these crows makes in-app purchases on Candy Crush