A raven's brain is literally the size of a walnut. But the ratio between the size of a raven's brain and it's body is one of the largest of any bird in the world. Being a “bird brain” is a complement if you're talking about ravens.
A crow's brain is about the weight of three nickels, and if you compare a crows brain to an orangutan's brain of the same mass, the crow's brain will have 43 times more neurons than the orangutan. This means that certain birds can achieve primate-like levels of cognition.
Bird brains are the size of a nut, or possibly even smaller in some cases. But a plethora of new research shows that despite their small brain size, birds are actually among the most intelligent members of the animal kingdom.
The Biggest Bird Brain: White-Browed Sparrow Weavers on the Top of Their Social Game Have the Largest Song Centers.
One recent study claims that by four months old, ravens have full-blown cognitive skills and before reaching full maturity they can rival adult great apes. Another, indicates that problem-solving crows perform similarly to children under seven years of age.
Scientists compare the intelligence of crows to that of a seven-year-old human child. Crows, ravens, and other corvids are the only non-primates that make tools. Crows are capable of abstract reasoning, complex problem-solving, and group decision-making.
The brainy birds performed just as well as chimpanzees and orangutans across a broad array of tasks designed to measure intelligence. “We now have very strong evidence to say that, at least in the tasks we used, ravens are very similar to great apes,” says Pika, lead author of the study.
Fun Facts. The sperm whale has the biggest brain of any animal species, weighing up to 20 pounds (7 to 9 kilograms).
The corvids (ravens, crows, jays, magpies, etc.) and psittacines (parrots, macaws, and cockatoos) are often considered the most intelligent birds, and are among the most intelligent animals in general. Pigeons, finches, domestic fowl, and birds of prey have also been common subjects of intelligence studies.
The Killer Whale - It is also a sea creature with the biggest brain. These are also known as Orcas. They have a brain weight of between 12 and 15 pounds. They are also intelligent animals.
The leeches that I have driven several hundred miles to encounter are freshwater, bloodsucking, multi-segmented annelid worms with 10 stomachs, 32 brains, nine pairs of testicles, and several hundred teeth that leave a distinctive bite mark.
By contrast, our closest living relatives have much smaller brain sizes: Modern chimpanzees and orangutans have brains averaging about 400 cc, with gorillas averaging about 500 cc (Tobias 1971, see appendix A table 3).
The Etruscan shrew has the smallest brain of all mammals. Its cerebral cortex is very thin, only 400 to 500 µm on average [16,70]. As in other mammals, the cortex of the Etruscan shrew is a cytoarchitectonically heterogeneous sheet of tissue.
Both of these birds are extremely intelligent (though ravens seem a bit smarter than crows) and are quite playful. Ravens have at least 7 different calls and can imitate the calls of other birds (geese, jays, crows). They also use stunt flying to attract mates (barrel-rolling, flying upside-down, and somersaults).
Ravens, which are highly social animals that often show empathy to one another and can be positively conniving, “possess an understanding of perception-goal psychology – a basic 'Theory of Mind,'” the authors explain in their paper. In other words, a raven can infer what another animal might be thinking.
Although a pigeon's brain is no bigger than the tip of an index finger, it turns out that the neural pathways involved, including the basal ganglia and cortical-striatal synapses, operate in ways very similar to those at work in the human brain.
The emu has the reputation of being one of the least intelligent birds among a few emu experts, including a Canadian scientist and a former emu breeder.
The American Crow, however, is just the smartest in a whole family of whip-smart birds. They're in the family Corvidae, which consists of ravens, rooks, jays, nutcrackers, magpies, jackdaws, choughs, and treepies.
Unsurprisingly, chimpanzees are one of the most intelligent animals on this planet—next to humans, of course. Similar to how humans inherit their intelligence from their mother, a chimpanzee's intelligence also greatly relies on their genes.
You surely know that humans and giraffes have just one heart, as most animals do—but not all. Octopuses and squids (animals called cephalopods) have three hearts.
The largest animal heart is the blue whale's, which has been weighed at about 400 pounds (and it is not the size of a small car, contrary to popular belief).
Ravens are known for their intelligence, but they also make curious and loyal pets. A flock of ravens is called an “unkindness,” but they are in fact, quite amicable. A video (above) shows the gentle bond shared by Loki the raven and its human owner, Elliot.
While crows do nearly as well as ravens solving intelligence tests, McGowan stresses that crows have an uncanny memory for human faces—and can remember if that particular person is a threat. “They seem to have a good sense that every person is different and that they need to approach them differently.”