The mystery of 'crow funerals' solved: Researchers say birds are trying to learn about potential dangers to their own lives - and remember threats for years

• Birds gathered together around a dead crow to observe the situation 
• Researchers wore latex masks to disguise their identities
• Birds can remember an animal or person seen with a dead crow
• Even remembered people standing near a hawk carrying a dead crow

By Mark Prigg For Dailymail.com

Published: 18:13 EST, 2 October 2015 | Updated: 21:53 EST, 2 October 2015

Crows mourn their dead to try and learn about potential dangers to their own lives, researchers have found.

They found the birds can even remember an animal or person seen with a dead crow.

The birds were also able to easily distinguish between people of hawks carry dead crows and other birds.

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Researchers found the birds can even remember an animal or person seen with a dead crow and were able to easily distinguish between people or hawks carrying dead crows and other birds.

'The funeral behaviour of crows is so widely observed, and people often asked about it - but we haven't known what was happening,' Kaeli Swift at the University of Washington, who led the research, told Dailymail.com.

The study recorded the crow's behaviour when stuffed crows which appeared dead were introduced to areas where they are feeding.  

'I introduced one of my three dangerous scenarios: a masked person holding a dead crow, a masked person standing near perched hawk, and a masked person standing near a perched hawk with a dead crow.'

In all these cases the birds were taxidermy-prepared mounts. 

'The masks were used to work out how the crows recognised people - I had different volunteers each week,' Swift said.

In 96% of cases , the response was the same.

'The discovering bird (usually the territory holder) would scold and typically attract 5-11 additional birds. 

'The mob would stick around for 10-20 minutes, scolding loudly and gradually growing more silent and dispersing before all but the territory holders were left.' 

Exposure to the dangerous stimuli would only last 30min, after which they were removed. 

Volunteers carried stuffed crows for the experiment to simulate a dead animal being nearby

Volunteers wore realistic facemasks with neutral expressions for the experiments so the crows could recognise faces even though different volunteers were underneath them.

'I found that crows responded most strongly when they saw a person and a hawk with a dead crow as opposed to a person holding a dead crow or a person near a hawk,' said Swift.

'This tells us that context matters, and crows are most sensitive to dead crows when they’re with familiar predators.

Even after 6 week, 38% of the 65 pairs eligible for all 6 tests continued to respond to the ‘dangerous’ person. 

Previous research has found crows have an excellent memory for human faces, and Swift said the team have a pending publication on exactly how long they remember for, and said it is 'years' 

She admits she was surprised by some of the results - in particular the fact crows learnt to recognise people simply standing near hawks.

'That was really surprising.' 

Previous research has found crows have an excellent memory for human faces.

Dr John Marzluff, of the University of Washington, has carried out previous studies in the area.

‘Our findings add to the evolving view of large-brained, social and long-lived birds like crows being on a cognitive par with our closest relatives,' he previously said.

A team of scientists from the university exposed crows in Seattle to a ‘dangerous face’ by wearing a mask while trapping, banding and releasing birds at five sites. 

Over a five-year period after the trapping had stopped, they found that the mask received an increasingly hostile response from birds in the area – suggesting that the captured birds had been able to warn others.

Dr Marzluff added: ‘Because human actions often threaten animals, learning socially about individual people’s habits would be advantageous.

‘The number of crows scolding the dangerous mask continued to increase for five years after trapping, as expected if social learning or social stimulation were present.

‘As we conducted trials, walking with the dangerous mask along the route, our actions presented opportunities for crows to observe or be stimulated by scolding.

‘The number of crows encountered was consistent across trials, but the number that scolded the dangerous mask increased steadily.’ 

MUCH SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE BIRD BRAIN 

Members of the crow family are known to be among the cleverest of birds, but scientists are finding that they may have intelligence that rivals most mammals and even young children.

An experiment by the University of Cambridge showed that crows can perform tasks that three and four-year-old children have difficulty with.

Scientists said that, while having very different brain structures, both crows and primates use a combination of mental tools, including imagination and the anticipation of possible future events, to solve similar problems.

In a test set up by BBC Two, a crow called 007 completed an eight stage puzzle in two-and-a-half minutes (illustrated). It is one of the most complex tests of the animal mind ever devised

Other experiments involving the same family of birds found that Caledonian crows can use up to three tools in sequence to obtain food.

A study also found rooks can use stones to raise the level of water in a vessel in order to bring a floating worm into reach.

Urban-living carrion crows have been witnessed learning to use road traffic for cracking nuts.

The problem-solving creature performed the series of tasks without seeing the fiendishly difficult set up of the course beforehand.

The wild crow learned to use individual props during its three months of captivity but had to work out the order in which to use them to complete the challenge and get an inaccessible treat. The animal was later released.

In another astonishing test set up by BBC Two, a crow called 007 completed an eight stage puzzle in two and a half minutes.

It is one of the most complex tests of the animal mind ever devised.

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