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0:00They're really clever. They have these amazing cognitive abilities.
0:03They're more like feathered apes.
0:10This is Betty, she's a female raven. She's the biggest of the corvids.
0:14And corvids in general are very, very intelligent birds.
0:27They can creatively problem-solve.
0:30So they can put together sequences or behaviours that they've learned
0:34into a novel way to solve a problem.
0:37You see she'll look at things, she'll cock her head,
0:40and you can actually see her working it out.
0:42What is it? Can I benefit anything from that?
0:45The hard part is trying to stay one step in front of her.
0:52So there's a classic military line that says improvise, adapt, overcome.
0:57And that's a really positive way of thinking about anything.
1:00It's about trial and error and the resilience to keep going.
1:04New Caledonian crows create multi-step tools,
1:08which are essentially tools that are strong and thick at one end
1:13and thin and flexible at the other end.
1:16And that means that they are able to put those tools easily into crevices
1:20and extract food items.
1:26Albert Einstein described compound interest
1:29as the eighth wonder of the world.
1:30Crows really understand compound interest.
1:34So when they save that bit of food and bury it in the grass,
1:38they know that over time maggots will come in
1:42and, from the crow's perspective, they will have even more food.
1:45It's found its food, it's saved its food,
1:48and now it's buried it in the ground somewhere
1:50where it gets compound interest on its investment.
1:52She's burying food in the summer, you've got files, flies lay eggs,
1:56maggots hatch out the eggs. So when she goes back to the food,
1:58not only has she got the rotten bit of food she's cached anyway,
2:01but she's doubled it in size by having all the maggots on it as well.
2:06For a long time it was thought that delayed gratification
2:08was something that was unique to humans and non-human great apes
2:12and some primates,
2:14but it has been found that corvids will delay gratification.
2:17So they will deny themselves an immediate reward
2:20in order to get a reward of a better quality in the future.
2:25They form really long-term relationships,
2:27and those relationships are themselves
2:30an example of delayed gratification.
2:31Crows have absolutely nailed delayed gratification.
2:35There's a seminal book, called The Marshmallow Test, by Walter Mischel,
2:39which studies young children and as they've grown up
2:43and their ability to delay gratification,
2:45their ability to look at a marshmallow and wait,
2:48and if they wait long enough they will get two.
2:50What that study showed is that those children were able, later on in life,
2:55to be better at managing money, better at managing relationships,
2:58healthier, more likely to do exercise, more likely to eat well.
3:02So delayed gratification is the key
3:04to putting off those short-term gains for long-term benefits.
3:14No. No.