Study
Ravens parallel great apes in flexible planning for tool-use and bartering
Kabadayi, Can; Osvath, Mathias
Science, 2017
Ravens were taught to use a tool on an apparatus, or to exchange a token with a human for food. They were then offered the tool or token at a time when it was useless, with the apparatus or trading partner returning only much later, alongside an immediately edible but smaller reward.
- Studied in
- Corvus corax
- Sample size
- 5 captive common ravens
Ravens frequently selected and kept the tool or token over an immediate treat, and used it successfully when the opportunity returned up to seventeen hours later.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Ravens plan for future events outside their current motivational state, at a level comparable to that shown in great apes.
How NatureHQ reads it
Caching food for later could be explained by a specialised instinct, so the strength of this design is that neither tools nor bartering are things ravens do in the wild. Choosing a useless object over immediate food, for a payoff hours away, is hard to explain without some form of future-directed decision. Five birds, and a strong claim, so it deserves replication more than it deserves a headline.
- Five individuals, all hand-raised and highly experienced with human experimenters.
- Extensive training precedes the test, so learned rules cannot be fully excluded.
- Comparisons with apes involve different procedures and are not exactly like-for-like.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of SciencePublished in Science or Science Advances (AAAS).
doi.org/10.1126/science.aam8138
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref and OpenAlex on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-09.