New Study Says Unfairness Really Ruffles Crows' Feathers
One smart bird Photo by Joachim S. MüllerA new experiment found crows and ravens have a sense of fairness, just like people and dogs. People, primates and dogs all react negatively when others get a better reward for doing the same work. Now a small study has found that crows and ravens dislike unfairness, too--the first time research has shown non-mammals react to inequity. Knowing which animals do and don't seem to notice unfairness (cleaner fish, for example, don't notice) helps scientists figure out how a sense of fairness evolved. For the study, published February 20 in the journal PLoS ONE, a pair of biologists at the University of Vienna trained six carrion crows and four ravens to exchange pebble tokens for food. The researchers then created same-species pairs for a series of experiments. When the birds saw their partners getting food for free, without having to exchange tokens, they...