bird makes tools

There has been news lately of biologists observing gorillas and birds using tools. In the process of reading about this, I found a National Geographic article about Betty, the New Caledonian crow who can make tools without prior coaching. They put a small bucket of food in a tube and left a straight piece of wire nearby. Betty picked up the wire and tried to use it to retrieve the food, but when that didn't work, she bent one end of the wire into a hook shape and used that to lift the bucket by the handle. The video is pretty cool.

In fact, I think birds in general are pretty cool, and I say that not just because of my surname. For years, paleontologists have been talking about the link between dinosaurs and birds. One easy example is the feathered archaeopteryx ("some kind of bird-reptile"), but some researchers think "raptor" dinos may have evolved from birds as well, losing the power of flight in the way the ostrich did. There's also talk of most dinosaurs having feathers to help regulate body heat. I have trouble wrapping my brain around the image of a feathered, flightless dinosaur, but that may have indeed been the case, including with the velociraptor made famous in the film Jurassic Park.

Feathered dinosaurs