Hook innovation boosts foraging efficiency in tool-using crows
Abstract
The New Caledonian crow is the only non-human animal known to craft hooked tools in the wild, but the ecological benefit of these relatively complex tools remains unknown. Here, we show that crows acquire food several times faster when using hooked rather than non-hooked tools, regardless of tool material, prey type and extraction context. This implies that small changes to tool shape can strongly affect energy-intake rates, highlighting a powerful driver for technological advancement.
Citation
St Clair , J J H , Klump , B C , Sugasawa , S , Higgott , C G , Colegrave , N & Rutz , C 2018 , ' Hook innovation boosts foraging efficiency in tool-using crows ' , Nature Ecology and Evolution , vol. 2 , no. 3 , pp. 441-444 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0429-7
Publication
Nature Ecology and Evolution
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2397-334XType
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0429-7
Description
The study was funded through a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship (grant BB/G023913/2 to C.R.), and PhD studentships from the BBSRC (B.K.) and JASSO (S.S.).Collections
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