Birds
New Caledonian Crow
Corvus moneduloides · also called new caledonian crow
The New Caledonian crow is a plain black bird from a small Pacific island group, and it is one of the most accomplished tool users in the animal kingdom. It does not just pick up a handy stick — it manufactures hooked probes from twigs, cuts barbed tools from the edges of tough leaves, carries its favourites around, and uses one tool to fish out another.
Overview
New Caledonian crows live in the forests and wooded country of New Caledonia, in the southwest Pacific. They are about 40 cm long, all black, with a notably straight bill and forward-set eyes that give better binocular vision than most crows — features that help them see and control a tool held in the beak. They eat beetle grubs dug from dead wood, along with insects, fruit, nuts, and carrion.
Making tools
The crow trims forked twigs into hooked probes and tears long, stepped, barbed strips from the serrated edges of pandanus leaves — shaping raw plant material to a working design rather than using it as found. Pandanus tool shapes differ consistently across the island, and the more complex designs seem to build on simpler ones, which researchers read as a form of cumulative culture.
Planning ahead
In experiments, the crows use a short stick to get a longer stick, then use the long stick to reach food — planning several steps ahead. A captive bird named Betty famously bent a straight wire into a hook to lift a food bucket, showing the behaviour is flexible, not a fixed routine. Foraging crows often carry a good tool from tree to tree, holding onto it as a possession.
Learning
Young crows have an inherited tendency to poke with sticks, but they are clumsy at first and take a year or more of practice, watching their parents, to become skilled — and the local tool designs are passed on socially.
Status
The New Caledonian crow is Least Concern, common and stable, though confined to a small island group.
New Caledonian Crow: common questions
What makes the New Caledonian crow special among tool-using animals?
Many animals use objects, and a few make simple tools, but the New Caledonian crow does something rarer — it manufactures distinct tool types from raw material to a consistent design, uses them habitually in the wild rather than occasionally, and its tool traditions appear to accumulate improvements over time. It also solves problems that require using tools in sequence, such as using a tool to obtain a better tool, and it will craft a hook where a hook is needed. Together these abilities put it, along with a few great apes, at the top of the animal tool-use rankings, and it has become a central model species for studying how intelligence and culture evolve.
How does the crow make a hooked tool?
For twig hooks, the bird selects a forked twig, breaks it off, removes the leaves and bark, and trims one arm of the fork down to a short, sharp hook, then uses that hook to snag grubs out of holes and crevices in wood. For pandanus tools it works differently, gripping the serrated edge of a tough pandanus leaf and tearing along it in a series of steps to release a long, tapering strip with a row of natural barbs down one side. Both kinds of tool are then held in the bill and manoeuvred into tunnels, where the hook or barbs catch the prey so it can be drawn out.
Are New Caledonian crows smarter than other crows?
They are not obviously more intelligent across the board than close relatives such as ravens, rooks, or jackdaws, all of which are highly capable problem-solvers. What sets New Caledonian crows apart is a specific, highly developed talent for tool use, supported by anatomical features such as a straighter bill and more forward-facing eyes that help them see and control a tool held in the beak. It is a bit like the difference between a generally clever person and a specialist craftsman. In tests that do not involve tools, New Caledonian crows perform similarly to other large-brained corvids.
Do young crows have to learn tool use, or is it instinctive?
Both elements are involved. Naive young crows raised without ever seeing an adult use a tool will still show a basic tendency to pick up and poke with sticks, so part of the behaviour is inherited. But the skill improves enormously with practice and with the chance to watch and follow adults, especially their parents, over the many months that young crows stay with their family. Juveniles are clumsy tool users at first and take a year or more to become proficient, and the fine details of local tool design are passed on socially, which is why tool shapes differ from place to place across the island.