New Caledonian crows keep ‘valuable’ hooked tools safer than basic non-hooked tools

eLife

James JH St Clair¹  Christian Rutz¹  Barbara C Klump² 

[1] Centre for Biological Diversity, School of Biology, St Andrews, United Kingdom;Centre for Biological Diversity, School of Biology, St Andrews, United Kingdom;Cognitive and Cultural Ecology Group, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell am Bodensee, Germany;

关键词: Corvus moneduloides;    extractive foraging;    optimal foraging;    tool manufacture;    tool use;    utility;    Other;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.64829

来源: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

【 摘 要 】

The temporary storage and re-use of tools can significantly enhance foraging efficiency. New Caledonian crows in one of our study populations use two types of stick tools – hooked and non-hooked – which differ in raw material, manufacture costs, and foraging performance. Using a large sample of wild-caught, temporarily captive New Caledonian crows, we investigated experimentally whether individuals prefer one tool type over the other when given a choice and whether they take better care of their preferred tools between successive episodes of use, safely storing them underfoot or in nearby holes. Crows strongly preferred hooked stick tools made from Desmanthus virgatus stems over non-hooked stick tools. Importantly, this preference was also reflected in subsequent tool-handling behaviour, with subjects keeping hooked stick tools safe more often than non-hooked stick tools sourced from leaf litter. These results suggest that crows ‘value’ hooked stick tools, which are both costlier to procure and more efficient to use, more than non-hooked stick tools. Results from a series of control treatments suggested that crows altered their tool ‘safekeeping’ behaviour in response to a combination of factors, including tool type and raw material. To our knowledge, our study is the first to use safekeeping behaviour as a proxy for assessing how non-human animals value different tool types, establishing a novel paradigm for productive cross-taxonomic comparisons.

【 授权许可】

CC BY