We take away the right tool... this crow makes another one

In an Oxford experiment, food waits at the bottom of a tube, in a small container. The crows have a straight wire and another curved, suitable for lifting the container. But one of the birds carries the hook, leaving Betty with the wrong piece.

The female raven from New Caledonia first tries to use it. Then it immobilizes one end and deforms the wire with its spout. A hook appears, and she uses it to retrieve the food. In the following tests, it repeats this transformation in different ways.

The observation published in 2002 therefore shows more than a choice between two ready-to-use objects. Betty can adapt a material to the problem. It does not, however, demonstrate that each crow has human reasoning or that an individual performance describes an entire species. It’s a precise experimental result, and it’s already a lot.