I used to think ravens were just clever scavengers, the kind of bird that figured out how to open a trash can and called it a day.
Then I watched a video of a raven in a lab—one of those sterile setups with white walls and cameras everywhere—solving what researchers call a “multi-step puzzle box.” The bird had to pull a string to lift a platform, then use a stick to nudge a treat closer, then pull another string to finally recieve the food. It took maybe ninety seconds, and the raven never hesitated. What struck me wasn’t just the problem-solving, though. It was the way the bird kept glancing at another raven in a nearby cage, almost like it was showing off or maybe checking if the other one was paying attention. That’s when I realized: intelligence in ravens isn’t just about individual smarts—it’s deeply, weirdly social.
Turns out, ravens don’t just solve problems alone. They watch each other, they learn from mistakes that aren’t even theirs, and they seem to adjust their strategies based on who’s around. It’s like they have this social network running in the background, constantly updating their mental software.
When Cooperation Looks Like Manipulation (And Maybe It Is Both)
Here’s the thing: ravens cooperate, but they also deceive. In one study from the University of Vienna—conducted roughly around 2015 or so, give or take—researchers found that ravens would cache food in one spot while being watched, then move it later when alone. But if the watching raven was a friend, a bird they’d shared food with before, they were less likely to bother with the deception. The researchers called it “audience-dependent caching behavior,” which is a very academic way of saying ravens know exactly who they can trust and who might steal their lunch. I guess it makes sense: if you’re going to live in complex social groups, you need to track relationships, remember favors, and maybe hold a grudge or two. Ravens do all of that, and they do it with what looks like deliberate intent.
Wait—maybe intent is the wrong word. Or maybe it’s exactly the right word, and that’s what makes this so unsettling.
What really gets me is how ravens seem to teach each other, not through some instinctive mimicry, but through something closer to demonstration. In the wild, juvenile ravens will follow adults to new food sources, watching how they open carcasses or exploit human environments. In captivity, researchers have seen ravens solve a problem, then other ravens in the group suddenly “get it” without trial and error—they just skip straight to the solution. That’s not just observational learning; that’s cultural transmission, the kind of thing we usually reserve for primates or cetaceans. And yet here are these black-feathered opportunists, passing down knowledge like some kind of avian oral tradition.
The Uncomfortable Truth About What Ravens Might Actually Understand
Honestly, the more I read about raven cognition, the more I wonder if we’ve been measuring intelligence all wrong.
Standard tests—like the ones developed for pigeons or rats in the mid-20th century—focus on individual problem-solving: can the animal press a lever, navigate a maze, remember a sequence? Ravens do fine on those tests, but they seem almost bored by them, like they’re tolerating the experimenters. Where they really shine is in social problem-solving: figuring out what another raven knows, anticipating betrayal, coordinating without obvious signals. Some researchers, like Thomas Bugnyar at the University of Vienna, argue that ravens might have what’s called “theory of mind”—the ability to understand that other individuals have thoughts and intentions seperate from their own. That’s a cognitive skill most animals definately don’t have, and even in humans, it doesn’t fully develop until around age four. If ravens have even a rudimentary version of it, that changes the conversation entirely.
I’ve seen videos of ravens playing, and it’s not the aimless kind of play you see in a lot of animals. They slide down snowy roofs on their backs, they toss sticks to each other mid-flight, they dive-bomb wolves just for the hell of it. Play like that—especially social play—suggests they’re not just surviving. They’re experimenting, testing social bonds, maybe even enjoying themselves. Which feels weirdly familiar, like watching a reflection of something we thought was uniquely ours.
Anyway, maybe that’s the point. Ravens don’t solve problems the way we expect animals to solve problems. They solve them the way social creatures solve them: messily, collaboratively, with an eye on who’s watching and what they might think.
