Ravens Console Each Other After Fights

[n2doc]

By Jennifer Welsh May 17, 2010 | 1:17 pm | Categories: Animals


After ravens see a friend get a beat down, they approach the victim and appear to console it, according to new research.

Orlaith Fraser and her co-author Thomas Bugnyar watched the aftermath of 152 fights over a two year period between 13 hand-reared young adult ravens housed at the Konrad Lorenz Research Station in Austria. What they found was the first evidence for birds consoling one another.

“It’s not a good thing for your partner to be distressed,” Fraser explained. “It’s interesting to see these behaviors in animals other than chimpanzees. It seems to be more ingrained in evolutionary history.”

And there might be a bit of self-interest embedded in the birds’ actions, too. “Maybe if you are involved in a fight they might come and console you,” Fraser said.


more

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/ravens-consolation/

[Kookaburra]

1. LOL -- when I first read your subject title

I thought you were talking about the football team.

Anyway, ravens and crows are my favorite birds. So smart. We used to have a "pet" crow that hung out in the tree by our back deck and would land on the railing and take peanuts out of your hand. Smart bird.

[n2doc]

2. They are amazingly smart

Parrots too. I don't know how they get so much out of their small brains, including all the 3-D flight and navigation capabilities they need. Sometimes I think we humans waste most of what we have (and that's not including t-baggers!)

[TZ]

7. I've always thought that calling someone a "birdbrain"

isn't always the insult some people take it to be. The intelligence of many birds is quite impressive..especially amoung the corvids..Ravens, Crows, Jays.....

[damntexdem]

3. Do they tell each other "nevermore"?

;-)

[Jim__]

4. Does this imply consciousness in ravens?

I guess we could say this is "instinctive" behavior, but to me this strongly implies self-awareness and awareness of others.

[Occulus]

5. Mother (bottlenose?) dolphins will chastise their calves when they misbehave

by holding them down near the bottom so they can't surface while literally screaming at them.

They can hold their breath for a long time, but still. I'd call CPS on that.

;)

[rug]

6. Haven't seen many ravens in GD.