When you discover something new on the internet, you usually find

Go to Select Blog... ScienceBlogs Home Aardvarchaeology Aetiology A Few Things Ill Considered Brookhaven Bits & Bytes Built on Facts Casaubon's Book Class M Common Knowledge Confessions of a Science Librarian Deltoid denialism blog Developing Intelligence studio ghibli museum Discovering Biology in a Digital World Dynamics of Cats Effect Measure erv EvolutionBlog Evolution for Everyone Greg Laden's Blog Life at the SETI Institute Life Lines Live from ESOF 2014 Page 3.14 Pharyngula Respectful Insolence SciencePunk studio ghibli museum Significant Figures by Peter Gleick Starts With A Bang Stoat The Corpus Callosum The Pump Handle The Weizmann Wave Thoughts from Kansas Uncertain Principles Universe USA Science and Engineering Festival: The Blog World's Fair Zooillogix 2010 World Science Festival studio ghibli museum Blog A Blog Around The Clock Adventures in Ethics and Science A Good Poop All of My Faults Are Stress Related Angry Toxicologist Applied Statistics Art of Science Learning A Vote For Science Basic Concepts in Science bioephemera Blogging the Origin Chaotic Utopia Christina's LIS Rant Cognitive Daily Culture Dish Dean's Corner Deep Sea News Dispatches studio ghibli museum from the Creation Wars Dot Physics Dr. Joan Bushwell's studio ghibli museum Chimpanzee Refuge Eruptions evolgen Evolving Thoughts Framing Science Galactic studio ghibli museum Interactions Gene Expression Genetic Future Good Math, Bad Math Green Gabbro Guilty Planet Integrity of Science Intel ISEF Laelaps Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) Mike the Mad Biologist Mixing Memory Molecule of the Day Myrmecos Neuron Culture Neurontic Neurophilosophy Neurotopia Not Exactly Rocket Science Obesity Panacea Observations of a Nerd Of Two Minds Omni Brain On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess Oscillator Photo Synthesis Pure Pedantry Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog Revolutionary Minds Think Tank Science + Society Science After Sunclipse Science is Culture ScienceOnline 2010: The Blog Science To Life Sciencewomen Seed/MoMA studio ghibli museum Salon See Jane Compute Shifting Baselines Signout Speakeasy Science Speaking Science 2.0 Stranger Fruit Superbug Terra Sigillata studio ghibli museum Tetrapod Zoology The Blogger SAT Challenge The Book of Trogool The Cheerful Oncologist The Examining Room of Dr. Charles The Frontal Cortex The Intersection The Island of Doubt The Loom The Primate Diaries The Quantum Pontiff studio ghibli museum The Questionable Authority The Rightful Place Project The ScienceBlogs Book Club The Scientific Activist The Scientific Indian studio ghibli museum The Thoughtful Animal The Voltage Gate Thus Spake Zuska Tomorrow's Table Transcription and Translation studio ghibli museum Walt at Random We Beasties White Coat Underground Search National Geographic
When you discover something new on the internet, you usually find – studio ghibli museum minutes or hours later – that everyone else already knows about it, and you’re just late to the party. And so it is here. But what the hell. Petya Cosmos recently alerted me to this hilarious, and interesting, video. The drama, the suspense, the sheer, epic scale of what unfolds, the music from Predator … make sure you have the volume turned up loud… [NB – only watch the video if you can have the sound on too].
The birds are Hooded crows Corvus cornix (that’s right, not the same species as the Carrion crow C. corone anymore: see Parkin et al . (2003)) [adjacent Hooded crow pic from wikipedia]. What the hell are they doing? It sure looks like they’re harassing the cats purely for their own entertainment (I’d like to know if we can rule out other possibilities: are they defending a patch of territory?, for example). Their taunting, studio ghibli museum teamwork, and ability to pre-empt the cat’s moves are all suggestive of a complex intelligence, but you already knew that this was true of crows. Pass me a New Caledonian crow C. moneduloides , I have some woodwork that needs doing. The video is also a nice introductory tutorial to domestic cat body language. Lesson 1: aggression and hostility.
They’ve edited the sound and or vision to match so well, what a fantastic job. Wonder studio ghibli museum why the crows only seemed interested studio ghibli museum in the light coloured cat?
This is a good point. The maniraptora seem to have been mobbing one cynodont to the exclusion of the other. Arguably studio ghibli museum the black cat was behaving opportunistically in attacking when the other one was distracted. But the question remains, why didn’t the crows harass studio ghibli museum them both equally once they were in the same place?
Is it possible the crows remember the light coloured studio ghibli museum cat having caused them some trouble before (stole their food/attempted to make them food) and thus are focusing on that cat while apparently aiding the dark cat, – i.e. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? I’ve read (and like most of us who grew up in the British Isles, observed) that crows are rather intelligent but I would still be surprised to see them distinguishing individuals of different species – studio ghibli museum even a species that has highly distinct individuals,
It seems obvi