Cultural adaptation of crows

Every once in a while you come across something that just captivates you. Such was the case when I recently saw a TEDtalk by hacker and writer Joshua Klein. Klein, as you will see, is fascinated by crows. He has engaged in a ten-year amateur study of their behavior. One of his findings is that crows live in all parts of the planet (except Antarctica and the southern tip of South America), and that they always breed less than 5 km from human populations. They are hyper-adaptive and thrive by their proximity to humans. Klein illustrates their cultural adaptation by talking about how some crows in Japan developed an ingenious way of getting to food with the help of the automobile. Now, ten years after the first crows did this, all of the crows in this area of Japan have picked up this behavior. The crow's ability to quickly and flexibly adapt to new environments is astonishing. You'll also enjoy the vending machine he created for these wily birds. Enjoy this 10-minute talk.