Study Finds Crows To Be Capable of Recursion — A Cognitive Ability Thought To Be Unique To Humans And Other Primates

Put somewhat more simply, similarly to humans monkeys and crows can recognize that a structure can contain other structures with meaning. But for decades scientists thought that humans, or at least primates, are the only animals capable of understanding recursion. Yet, following the discovery, about two years ago, that rhesus monkeys can understand the idea of recursion on a par with three- to four-year-old human children (albeit with some extra training), a team has now conducted similar experiments with crows, and they turned out to outdo monkeys in certain aspects!