vellavu
Scooby
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- Oct 17, 2015
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These Crows Have Figured Out How to Safely Eat Poisonous Toads
Give a corvid a conundrum and it won't stay stymied long - the long-beaked birds have legendary problem-solving skills. In fact, they're so clever that Australian crows have even figured out a way to eat poisonous cane toads.
The cane toad, Rhinella marina, a species native to south and central America, was brought to Australia in 1935 in an attempt to control native beetles destroying sugar cane crops. Things didn't work out well.
There are programs to try and train animals away from eating cane toads, but Australian crows (Corvus orru) don't need any of that.
These birds have figured out how to get a meal and how not to get poisoned - and now an Australian nature photographer has captured a crow in action:
"These clever birds have learnt to roll the toads onto their backs, sometimes doing so repeatedly if the luckless toad tries to hop away. Crows know which bits to eat - fleshy thighs, tongues, intestines - and how to get at these from below without contacting the lethal parts."
It's probably more a testament to the crows' cleverness than a solution to the cane toad conundrum.
Give a corvid a conundrum and it won't stay stymied long - the long-beaked birds have legendary problem-solving skills. In fact, they're so clever that Australian crows have even figured out a way to eat poisonous cane toads.
The cane toad, Rhinella marina, a species native to south and central America, was brought to Australia in 1935 in an attempt to control native beetles destroying sugar cane crops. Things didn't work out well.
There are programs to try and train animals away from eating cane toads, but Australian crows (Corvus orru) don't need any of that.
These birds have figured out how to get a meal and how not to get poisoned - and now an Australian nature photographer has captured a crow in action:
"These clever birds have learnt to roll the toads onto their backs, sometimes doing so repeatedly if the luckless toad tries to hop away. Crows know which bits to eat - fleshy thighs, tongues, intestines - and how to get at these from below without contacting the lethal parts."
It's probably more a testament to the crows' cleverness than a solution to the cane toad conundrum.
