Candles are able to memorize tools

2018/06/28 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Zoologia

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Auckland have shown that New Caledonia candles (Corvus moneduloides) have the ability to make instruments of memory. In addition, they have the ability to remember and improve the design of tools made by other candles. According to the researchers, apart from the human being, few species have this capacity.

The ability of New Caledonia veils to make tools was known, but they did not know how they learned to make and improve tools. Now they have done an experiment with trained candles. In fact, they taught eight candles to put into a machine pieces of cardboard of different sizes in exchange for a prize.

After teaching them to do so, they gave a large cardboard to the candles and saw that the candles were able to divide the cardboard and give the shape they kept in their memory. The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.