The New Caledonian crow is a member of the corvid family, which
also includes ravens, jays, and magpies. Corvids are considered
the most intelligent bird species, and their tool-making
abilities rival or surpass those of great apes--in fact, their
puzzle-solving skills are about on par with a 5-year-old human
child. Crows are the only non-primates to consistently complete
the "stick and tube" puzzle, in which a piece of food is placed
halfway down the length of a clear tube. A long stick is placed
nearby. To get the food, the animal has to use the stick to poke
the food out of the tube. Crows complete this task easily and
spontaneously, without having to watch another crow do it first
--and even without having seen a clear tube before. The New
Caledonian crow is also the only non-human species to invent new
tools by modifying existing tools. It then passes those new
creations onto other crows in its social group. The crow is able
to use tools to retrieve other tools, and it can create tools
out of materials it