1 00:00:05,500 --> 00:00:10,580 For centuries, we thought animals were creatures of pure instinct, 2 00:00:10,580 --> 00:00:13,420 with no understanding of how the world works. 3 00:00:15,300 --> 00:00:18,260 Simple beasts with simple minds. 4 00:00:19,980 --> 00:00:23,580 We thought that only we humans could actually think, 5 00:00:23,580 --> 00:00:28,020 analyse, reason, use imagination and solve problems. 6 00:00:31,100 --> 00:00:34,340 But new scientific research is revealing there is 7 00:00:34,340 --> 00:00:38,220 a small group of animals with extraordinarily clever minds - 8 00:00:38,220 --> 00:00:41,860 octopus, great apes 9 00:00:41,860 --> 00:00:44,700 and even some birds. 10 00:00:44,700 --> 00:00:47,180 It's a bizarrely diverse group. 11 00:00:48,260 --> 00:00:51,820 But they share a remarkable ability to analyse 12 00:00:51,820 --> 00:00:54,900 and solve problems in a very human-like way. 13 00:00:54,900 --> 00:00:57,780 I want to get inside these animals' minds 14 00:00:57,780 --> 00:00:59,940 and see just how clever they are. 15 00:01:02,980 --> 00:01:08,300 Starting with perhaps the cleverest of all - the crow family. 16 00:01:08,300 --> 00:01:12,380 How on earth did that crow do that? 17 00:01:14,580 --> 00:01:17,580 I want to push them to the limit, to find out how 18 00:01:17,580 --> 00:01:22,580 they measure up to other animals that we think are pretty clever. 19 00:01:22,580 --> 00:01:25,340 All you've got to do is lift the ball! 20 00:01:25,340 --> 00:01:29,620 I'll discover what makes some animals capable of brilliant 21 00:01:29,620 --> 00:01:33,260 ingenuity that seems almost human. 22 00:01:33,260 --> 00:01:35,420 It's a sort of Satnav for bees. 23 00:01:36,900 --> 00:01:40,740 I want to uncover why this special group of animals 24 00:01:40,740 --> 00:01:43,740 have such superb problem solving minds. 25 00:01:45,060 --> 00:01:49,100 Now, if we can do this, we might just unlock one of nature's 26 00:01:49,100 --> 00:01:54,380 greatest mysteries - how we ourselves came to be so clever. 27 00:02:12,620 --> 00:02:15,100 Welcome to a lost world. 28 00:02:18,780 --> 00:02:20,780 The island of New Caledonia. 29 00:02:25,660 --> 00:02:30,140 Lying nearly 1,000 miles east of Australia, it is a tropical 30 00:02:30,140 --> 00:02:36,780 paradise, bursting with exotic life found nowhere else on the planet. 31 00:02:40,940 --> 00:02:45,980 I'm here to find one of these unique animals. 32 00:02:45,980 --> 00:02:49,460 It has an almost legendary status, 33 00:02:49,460 --> 00:02:53,500 thanks to an amazing ability to solve problems. 34 00:02:55,620 --> 00:02:59,140 The animal that I am looking for is truly remarkable. 35 00:02:59,140 --> 00:03:03,340 The problem is, it is very, very difficult to find. 36 00:03:03,340 --> 00:03:05,580 It's cunning. And it's quick. 37 00:03:05,580 --> 00:03:07,100 Agile. 38 00:03:08,340 --> 00:03:11,580 If I'm honest with you, there could be one right here somewhere, 39 00:03:11,580 --> 00:03:15,420 just looking down at me, and I've never ever seen one. 40 00:03:23,140 --> 00:03:28,220 Many experts think that these are the cleverest animals on earth. 41 00:03:28,220 --> 00:03:32,220 I've been told I might see that intelligence in action 42 00:03:32,220 --> 00:03:34,340 on the island's high mountain roads. 43 00:03:37,380 --> 00:03:41,220 It is this - a crow. 44 00:03:41,220 --> 00:03:43,980 But not just any crow. 45 00:03:43,980 --> 00:03:46,900 This is the New Caledonian crow. 46 00:03:46,900 --> 00:03:50,860 It is not the same species we find a Britain. 47 00:03:50,860 --> 00:03:53,220 These are jungle birds. 48 00:03:53,220 --> 00:03:56,020 And here, in isolation on the island, 49 00:03:56,020 --> 00:03:59,380 they have evolved some remarkable abilities. 50 00:03:59,380 --> 00:04:02,660 This one is holding a nut in its claw. 51 00:04:04,380 --> 00:04:06,700 It drops it onto the tarmac, 52 00:04:06,700 --> 00:04:09,260 seemingly to crack open the hard shell. 53 00:04:10,660 --> 00:04:16,060 But in truth, it is what the bird does next that is really ingenious. 54 00:04:16,060 --> 00:04:18,220 Now, look at this, this is interesting because, 55 00:04:18,220 --> 00:04:21,420 having broken the nut open on the road, 56 00:04:21,420 --> 00:04:24,900 these birds are then carrying it to the Armco here, 57 00:04:24,900 --> 00:04:29,220 where there are small depressions, man-made cuts, in it. 58 00:04:29,220 --> 00:04:33,620 And they're using these as a vice to stop the nut from rolling 59 00:04:33,620 --> 00:04:36,860 around whilst they access the fruit on the inside of it. 60 00:04:36,860 --> 00:04:40,940 Now, that strikes me as pretty clever. 61 00:04:40,940 --> 00:04:45,020 But the question is, of course, just how clever are these birds? 62 00:04:49,500 --> 00:04:52,620 To find out, I have come to visit Dr Alex Taylor 63 00:04:52,620 --> 00:04:55,060 at his field aviary here on the island. 64 00:04:57,820 --> 00:05:00,140 To study how these birds solve problems, 65 00:05:00,140 --> 00:05:04,420 he has put a tasty morsel of food deep in a container. 66 00:05:04,420 --> 00:05:08,180 He is testing whether they can work out how to reach it 67 00:05:08,180 --> 00:05:12,140 using a variety of objects he has pleased in the aviary. 68 00:05:12,140 --> 00:05:16,620 But first, he is trying his puzzle out on me. 69 00:05:16,620 --> 00:05:18,740 Imagine that you are a crow. 70 00:05:18,740 --> 00:05:22,180 Here is your food, in a deep hole. How would you go about, 71 00:05:22,180 --> 00:05:24,220 with the tools available to you on this table, 72 00:05:24,220 --> 00:05:25,620 solving this problem? 73 00:05:27,900 --> 00:05:30,100 This is part of it, obviously. Mm-hm. 74 00:05:30,100 --> 00:05:36,180 At my disposal, I have a short stick on a piece of string, 75 00:05:36,180 --> 00:05:38,820 three stones inside the cages... 76 00:05:40,660 --> 00:05:43,500 ..and a longer stick trapped in a box. 77 00:05:43,500 --> 00:05:48,220 Which means, then, that the crow is going to use this stick... 78 00:05:51,620 --> 00:05:54,860 ..to get the stones out of there. Absolutely. 79 00:05:54,860 --> 00:05:58,540 Next, the crow needs to drop the stones onto a trap door 80 00:05:58,540 --> 00:06:01,220 to release the long stick. 81 00:06:01,220 --> 00:06:03,500 It is going to need all three stones. 82 00:06:03,500 --> 00:06:07,780 And then it probably will drop that one out. Excellent. 83 00:06:07,780 --> 00:06:13,580 And using this long stick, it will finally be able to reach the food. 84 00:06:15,020 --> 00:06:18,020 This is a tough one. All right, can I stay in here? 85 00:06:18,020 --> 00:06:21,100 Absolutely, you can sit and watch. We will see what happens. Come on, then. 86 00:06:21,100 --> 00:06:24,340 Send in your mastermind, because it is going to need that. 87 00:06:25,980 --> 00:06:28,100 Alex studies wild birds, 88 00:06:28,100 --> 00:06:31,140 which he releases after three months of research. 89 00:06:33,260 --> 00:06:36,180 This one is nicknamed 007, 90 00:06:36,180 --> 00:06:40,260 and it is about to attempt what Alex believes is one of the most 91 00:06:40,260 --> 00:06:45,340 complex tests of the animal mind ever constructed. 92 00:06:45,340 --> 00:06:49,260 The bird is familiar with the individual objects, 93 00:06:49,260 --> 00:06:53,780 but this is the first time he has seen them arranged like this. 94 00:06:55,820 --> 00:07:00,900 Eight separate stages that must be completed in a specific order 95 00:07:00,900 --> 00:07:03,580 if the puzzle is to be solved. 96 00:07:03,580 --> 00:07:08,420 And if the bird succeeds, it will be a world first. 97 00:07:08,420 --> 00:07:14,300 He takes time to have a look and then starts with the short stick. 98 00:07:19,180 --> 00:07:20,420 Stage I. 99 00:07:24,700 --> 00:07:27,660 He finds it is too short to reach the food. 100 00:07:29,340 --> 00:07:31,980 He then sets off to get the first stone. 101 00:07:40,540 --> 00:07:41,740 But he drops it. 102 00:07:55,940 --> 00:07:59,500 And another. He seems to be stuck. 103 00:08:03,060 --> 00:08:06,620 But then something seems to click. 104 00:08:08,340 --> 00:08:10,180 He deploys the first stone. 105 00:08:24,180 --> 00:08:25,820 And then another. 106 00:08:44,620 --> 00:08:45,940 Got it! 107 00:08:47,780 --> 00:08:50,220 The eighth and final stage. 108 00:08:56,700 --> 00:08:59,260 Success! 109 00:08:59,260 --> 00:09:04,500 Eight individual stages of one complex puzzle completed. 110 00:09:06,740 --> 00:09:10,260 That was remarkable. 111 00:09:10,260 --> 00:09:14,700 I've never ever seen anything like it. 112 00:09:14,700 --> 00:09:18,940 Of all of the bird behaviour I've seen, nothing matches that. 113 00:09:18,940 --> 00:09:20,660 I can hardly believe it. 114 00:09:20,660 --> 00:09:23,460 I'm still just running that sequence through my mind. 115 00:09:23,460 --> 00:09:25,140 It happened really quickly. 116 00:09:25,140 --> 00:09:27,860 But the immediate question is, of course, 117 00:09:27,860 --> 00:09:32,020 how on earth did that crow do that? 118 00:09:34,180 --> 00:09:35,900 You see, on the face of it, 119 00:09:35,900 --> 00:09:39,940 the crow's problem-solving abilities seem mind boggling. 120 00:09:44,220 --> 00:09:47,740 But look close enough and the natural world is filled with 121 00:09:47,740 --> 00:09:51,340 examples of animals behaving in clever ways. 122 00:09:56,380 --> 00:10:01,300 The spider spins a web that gets stronger when it catches prey. 123 00:10:01,300 --> 00:10:04,740 It's precision engineered to catch flies. 124 00:10:07,180 --> 00:10:12,060 Turtles navigate through thousands of miles of featureless ocean, 125 00:10:12,060 --> 00:10:16,100 returning every year to the same beaches to lay their eggs. 126 00:10:18,340 --> 00:10:22,220 It is as if they hold a nautical map in their heads. 127 00:10:23,780 --> 00:10:27,260 So are the clever crows really so unusual? 128 00:10:30,540 --> 00:10:32,380 Well, to find out, 129 00:10:32,380 --> 00:10:37,140 I need to investigate how animals solve problems. 130 00:10:39,700 --> 00:10:43,140 And I am starting back in Britain with the honeybee, 131 00:10:43,140 --> 00:10:48,060 a small animal that seems to be able to do something staggeringly clever. 132 00:10:50,180 --> 00:10:52,540 The pollen and nectar that bees eat 133 00:10:52,540 --> 00:10:55,740 is clearly only available whilst the flowers are in bloom, 134 00:10:55,740 --> 00:10:58,620 so it's there throughout the spring and the summer. 135 00:10:58,620 --> 00:11:01,020 But the bees have to get enough of it 136 00:11:01,020 --> 00:11:04,460 so that the hive can make it through the winter. 137 00:11:04,460 --> 00:11:08,220 And frankly, if that isn't a massive task, then I don't know what is. 138 00:11:10,780 --> 00:11:14,980 But the bees have an almost incredible solution. 139 00:11:14,980 --> 00:11:19,300 To see with that is, I have come to meet Professor Adam Hart. 140 00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:21,940 Hello, Adam. Hi, Chris. 141 00:11:21,940 --> 00:11:25,780 One of his specialisms is the hidden world of the honeybee. 142 00:11:25,780 --> 00:11:29,020 That is a very intimate view of the interior of the hive. 143 00:11:29,020 --> 00:11:32,260 Yes, it's like Big Brother for bees. It is! It's great, isn't it, really? 144 00:11:34,020 --> 00:11:38,500 Adam has set up an infrared camera to spy on the bees inside the hive. 145 00:11:39,980 --> 00:11:44,700 And we are hoping to see a striking behaviour that is key to 146 00:11:44,700 --> 00:11:48,140 solving the problem of gathering enough food. 147 00:11:48,140 --> 00:11:50,620 It is called the waggle dance. 148 00:11:52,820 --> 00:11:55,940 Adam, look at this one. This one is waggle dancing, isn't it? 149 00:11:55,940 --> 00:11:57,460 Yeah, this is the waggle dance. 150 00:11:57,460 --> 00:11:59,900 You have got this lovely figure of eight dance, 151 00:11:59,900 --> 00:12:02,860 sometimes getting in the way of other bees, but generally speaking, 152 00:12:02,860 --> 00:12:05,020 keeping this nice kind of rhythm going. 153 00:12:08,340 --> 00:12:11,900 The waggle dance isn't just for show. 154 00:12:11,900 --> 00:12:16,780 This bee has found a good source of food, and she is performing 155 00:12:16,780 --> 00:12:20,140 a set of very precise movements to tell the others 156 00:12:20,140 --> 00:12:22,020 exactly where to find it. 157 00:12:24,500 --> 00:12:28,740 And this is all about communicating the whereabouts of a food source. 158 00:12:28,740 --> 00:12:30,780 Yeah, this is like GPS for bees, basically. 159 00:12:30,780 --> 00:12:33,820 They are telling other bees not just that there is food out there, 160 00:12:33,820 --> 00:12:36,060 which is quite a useful signal, but where that food is. 161 00:12:36,060 --> 00:12:40,140 So they can communicate the direction and the distance of that nectar. 162 00:12:43,260 --> 00:12:48,380 But how can a dance communicate where a food source is? 163 00:12:54,580 --> 00:12:58,900 To find out, we need to get a better view of the horizon. 164 00:13:03,700 --> 00:13:05,940 Super view, well worth the climb. Yeah. 165 00:13:05,940 --> 00:13:08,020 But what about the mechanics of this dance, then? 166 00:13:08,020 --> 00:13:10,620 The bee we saw in the hive was doing this figure of eight, 167 00:13:10,620 --> 00:13:13,500 and that central section was where she was vibrating her abdomen. 168 00:13:13,500 --> 00:13:16,100 When you think about it, the only frame of reference bees have 169 00:13:16,100 --> 00:13:17,700 in the hive is gravity, up and down. 170 00:13:17,700 --> 00:13:20,620 The frame of reference they have out here is the position of the sun, 171 00:13:20,620 --> 00:13:23,380 or more accurately, where the sun would be if it was projected down 172 00:13:23,380 --> 00:13:25,820 on the horizon, what is called the azimuth. 173 00:13:27,260 --> 00:13:30,620 From up here, it is easy to see where the sun lies over 174 00:13:30,620 --> 00:13:36,220 the landscape and where it would be if it dropped to the horizon. 175 00:13:36,220 --> 00:13:42,060 Now, our dancing bee was waggling at an angle of five degrees. 176 00:13:42,060 --> 00:13:45,540 So, if this tower were a massive beehive, 177 00:13:45,540 --> 00:13:50,220 the waggle dance would be telling us that the nectar is five degrees 178 00:13:50,220 --> 00:13:52,460 from the relative position of the sun. 179 00:13:52,460 --> 00:13:55,060 That is somewhere in that direction. 180 00:13:56,700 --> 00:13:59,740 All right, that is the direction, what about the distance? 181 00:13:59,740 --> 00:14:02,620 That's that duration of that central waggle run, as it is called. 182 00:14:02,620 --> 00:14:05,660 The longer they dance for, the longer that waggle run goes on for, 183 00:14:05,660 --> 00:14:06,860 the farther away the food is. 184 00:14:06,860 --> 00:14:09,500 So, a very short waggle run, like we saw down in the hive, 185 00:14:09,500 --> 00:14:12,340 is maybe a couple of kilometres, whereas they can sometimes 186 00:14:12,340 --> 00:14:15,820 waggle for much longer, perhaps nine, ten kilometres even. 187 00:14:17,820 --> 00:14:20,380 So, honeybees survive the winter 188 00:14:20,380 --> 00:14:23,740 by using what we'd call mathematics. 189 00:14:23,740 --> 00:14:26,380 They compute angles and distances 190 00:14:26,380 --> 00:14:30,020 and then communicate that information to their nest mates. 191 00:14:34,020 --> 00:14:37,940 It seems incredibly clever, but in fact, 192 00:14:37,940 --> 00:14:41,580 it doesn't involve any thought at all. 193 00:14:41,580 --> 00:14:46,020 You see, the waggle dance is so important to the survival 194 00:14:46,020 --> 00:14:50,340 of the hive, that it comes built into the brain of the honeybee. 195 00:14:50,340 --> 00:14:52,380 Every worker bee is born 196 00:14:52,380 --> 00:14:56,820 with the ability to perform the dance automatically. 197 00:14:58,260 --> 00:15:02,940 In other words, the bees are acting on instinct - 198 00:15:02,940 --> 00:15:04,620 a set of behaviours 199 00:15:04,620 --> 00:15:07,620 that are so important to the animal's survival 200 00:15:07,620 --> 00:15:09,940 that they are hard wired. 201 00:15:09,940 --> 00:15:14,220 Think of them as a simple set of rules that are tattooed 202 00:15:14,220 --> 00:15:16,980 onto its genes by evolution. 203 00:15:16,980 --> 00:15:20,420 It is what makes these bees do the waggle dance. 204 00:15:20,420 --> 00:15:23,300 The animals have no real understanding 205 00:15:23,300 --> 00:15:24,980 of what they are doing. 206 00:15:27,300 --> 00:15:30,620 But what about our New Caledonian crow? 207 00:15:30,620 --> 00:15:35,860 It solved a complex eight-stage problem. 208 00:15:35,860 --> 00:15:41,300 Is it really possible that the bird was acting only on instinct, 209 00:15:41,300 --> 00:15:45,460 without any real understanding of what it was doing? 210 00:15:45,460 --> 00:15:48,620 In short, the answer is no. 211 00:15:48,620 --> 00:15:52,980 Because, unlike bees with their waggle dance, these birds are not 212 00:15:52,980 --> 00:15:58,740 dependent on solving a multistage puzzle in order to survive, 213 00:15:58,740 --> 00:16:02,580 for the very simple reason that you don't find multistage 214 00:16:02,580 --> 00:16:06,300 puzzles like this out there in the wild. They are not natural. 215 00:16:06,300 --> 00:16:09,580 They are a man-made artefact. 216 00:16:09,580 --> 00:16:13,820 And for that very obvious reason, there is no chance whatsoever 217 00:16:13,820 --> 00:16:18,900 that these birds could have evolved an instinct to solve them. 218 00:16:18,900 --> 00:16:23,580 But solve them they do. So if it isn't instinct, what is it? 219 00:16:25,020 --> 00:16:29,340 To begin to discover what is really going on in the crow's mind, 220 00:16:29,340 --> 00:16:32,300 I have come to Somerset to meet Lloyd Buck. 221 00:16:32,300 --> 00:16:35,060 He handles birds for TV and film. 222 00:16:36,540 --> 00:16:38,620 And this is Bran. 223 00:16:38,620 --> 00:16:43,260 He is a raven, one of the largest members of the crow family, 224 00:16:43,260 --> 00:16:45,300 a group known as the corvids. 225 00:16:48,540 --> 00:16:50,980 Oh, what a stunner! 226 00:16:54,020 --> 00:16:55,780 Hold my finger. 227 00:16:55,780 --> 00:16:56,900 Are you going to do it again? 228 00:16:56,900 --> 00:16:59,500 No, he just wants... Oh, ups, sorry. 229 00:17:01,460 --> 00:17:04,100 You want to hold my finger? No. 230 00:17:04,100 --> 00:17:07,220 You like that camera, it's the highest point. 231 00:17:07,220 --> 00:17:11,460 Bran is clearly a bird who knows his own mind. 232 00:17:11,460 --> 00:17:14,340 In fact, it is hard to know who is in charge. 233 00:17:16,140 --> 00:17:19,580 Myself and my dogs, you know, I am the pack leader. 234 00:17:19,580 --> 00:17:21,660 What about you and Bran, who's boss? 235 00:17:21,660 --> 00:17:23,900 Oh, well, I think obviously Ban. 236 00:17:23,900 --> 00:17:26,540 But as far as he is concerned, I am his mate. 237 00:17:26,540 --> 00:17:29,580 Right. His mate? Yeah. His partner? His partner. 238 00:17:29,580 --> 00:17:31,420 It is going to be a long-term relationship 239 00:17:31,420 --> 00:17:33,660 because they're a long-lived bird, aren't they? 240 00:17:33,660 --> 00:17:37,900 Yeah, in captivity up to 40, 50, even 60 years. 241 00:17:37,900 --> 00:17:39,580 He is going the distance with you. Yeah. 242 00:17:39,580 --> 00:17:42,460 And they are really time intensive. 243 00:17:42,460 --> 00:17:45,180 You can't just forget him and leave him in his aviary. 244 00:17:45,180 --> 00:17:48,060 He likes to go out for his fly, his walk every day. 245 00:17:48,060 --> 00:17:50,140 He wants to see, he wants to spend time with you. 246 00:17:50,140 --> 00:17:51,820 Cos they are so intelligent. 247 00:17:52,740 --> 00:17:55,740 To keep his demanding bird occupied, 248 00:17:55,740 --> 00:17:59,380 Lloyd likes to set Bran difficult problems to solve, 249 00:17:59,380 --> 00:18:00,860 like this one. 250 00:18:02,220 --> 00:18:06,340 Lloyd places a piece of food inside a plastic bottle 251 00:18:06,340 --> 00:18:08,820 and then crushes it. 252 00:18:08,820 --> 00:18:12,860 And you give him a bowl of water. A bowl of water? Yes. 253 00:18:16,860 --> 00:18:20,980 With the bottle crushed, the food is trapped behind the restriction. 254 00:18:20,980 --> 00:18:23,620 But this doesn't stop Bran. 255 00:18:26,740 --> 00:18:28,620 First, he adds water. 256 00:18:31,780 --> 00:18:33,860 Next, he spins it, 257 00:18:33,860 --> 00:18:38,220 and the liquid carries the food past the restriction and out. 258 00:18:39,940 --> 00:18:43,540 That is a clever piece of problem-solving. 259 00:18:47,580 --> 00:18:50,860 Oh, he's got it. He's got it! 260 00:18:50,860 --> 00:18:53,260 Honestly! 261 00:18:53,260 --> 00:18:56,940 What about that? Now, that is impressive. 262 00:18:56,940 --> 00:19:00,620 The thing is, Lloyd, how long did it take him to work that out? 263 00:19:00,620 --> 00:19:02,620 Well, presented with the crushed bottle, 264 00:19:02,620 --> 00:19:04,580 it took him basically an afternoon. 265 00:19:04,580 --> 00:19:07,700 He got frustrated, he couldn't work it out initially, and he left it. 266 00:19:07,700 --> 00:19:09,220 So we left it with him in his aviary 267 00:19:09,220 --> 00:19:11,220 and we went up to the house for lunch. 268 00:19:11,220 --> 00:19:16,220 Come back down in the afternoon and, lo and behold, the food was gone. 269 00:19:19,900 --> 00:19:24,580 But let's not forget that Bran is a tame raven. 270 00:19:24,580 --> 00:19:28,220 Aren't you a clever boy? Yes, you are. 271 00:19:28,220 --> 00:19:31,700 It is possible that, in spending so much time with humans, 272 00:19:31,700 --> 00:19:35,460 he has been able to observe and copy some of their actions. 273 00:19:36,540 --> 00:19:40,220 You are too clever for your own good half the time, that is your problem. 274 00:19:40,220 --> 00:19:43,420 So, I'm going to set Bran a new challenge, 275 00:19:43,420 --> 00:19:46,500 one that he has never seen before. 276 00:19:46,500 --> 00:19:47,900 And this time, 277 00:19:47,900 --> 00:19:52,140 I am going to pit his intelligence against another animal, 278 00:19:52,140 --> 00:19:54,420 one that we tend to think is pretty clever, 279 00:19:54,420 --> 00:19:57,260 certainly brighter than birds - 280 00:19:57,260 --> 00:19:58,700 the dog, 281 00:19:58,700 --> 00:20:03,580 or to be more precise, my dogs - Itchy and Scratchy. 282 00:20:03,580 --> 00:20:07,860 Amongst the dogs, poodles are about the smartest. Are they? So they say. 283 00:20:07,860 --> 00:20:11,060 Bran, he just finished War And Peace. 284 00:20:11,060 --> 00:20:13,300 LAUGHTER I can see how this is going to go. 285 00:20:15,940 --> 00:20:18,180 To make things even more interesting, 286 00:20:18,180 --> 00:20:21,460 I am also going to put the same test to Fletcher here, 287 00:20:21,460 --> 00:20:23,220 who is two and a half, 288 00:20:23,220 --> 00:20:26,500 which incidentally is nearly the same age as Bran. 289 00:20:29,060 --> 00:20:34,220 They are all going to face this - a puzzle box of my own design. 290 00:20:34,220 --> 00:20:35,660 Here's how it works. 291 00:20:37,660 --> 00:20:41,340 The prize is in the green ball in the centre. 292 00:20:41,340 --> 00:20:45,620 But to get to it, they firstly have to pull this drop door down here. 293 00:20:45,620 --> 00:20:50,540 And then, pull this smaller box out. 294 00:20:50,540 --> 00:20:54,740 And then, remove the lid from that 295 00:20:54,740 --> 00:20:56,780 to get the ball. 296 00:20:56,780 --> 00:20:58,220 Simple, isn't it? 297 00:20:58,220 --> 00:20:59,740 Well, let's find out. 298 00:21:01,540 --> 00:21:03,500 We've given all of our contenders 299 00:21:03,500 --> 00:21:07,340 the chance to familiarise themselves with parts of the puzzle box. 300 00:21:11,020 --> 00:21:14,060 As usual, Lloyd leaves Bran to it. 301 00:21:15,660 --> 00:21:19,300 Fletcher is also showing an interest in how it works. 302 00:21:20,940 --> 00:21:22,260 Itch, concentrate. 303 00:21:22,260 --> 00:21:25,900 'Whereas I need to be a bit more hands-on.' 304 00:21:25,900 --> 00:21:27,020 Now, look, look. 305 00:21:29,060 --> 00:21:31,500 Pull that. What this. Look, watch. 306 00:21:31,500 --> 00:21:35,140 This is the sort of thing my mother would have done. Look, watch. 307 00:21:37,780 --> 00:21:39,660 That's your lesson over for today. 308 00:21:41,860 --> 00:21:44,580 And now, the moment of truth has come. 309 00:21:44,580 --> 00:21:49,060 The contenders are about to face the test proper for the first time. 310 00:21:49,060 --> 00:21:54,380 This is raven versus dog versus human. 311 00:22:02,020 --> 00:22:04,380 Itchy, solve this. 312 00:22:06,820 --> 00:22:09,380 Solve that. OK? I'll be back. Solve it. 313 00:22:14,420 --> 00:22:19,220 And that, I'm afraid to say, is an emphatic win for Bran 314 00:22:19,220 --> 00:22:21,260 and all of his corvid kind. 315 00:22:24,300 --> 00:22:27,380 In truth, my dogs didn't even seem to realise there was 316 00:22:27,380 --> 00:22:30,820 a problem to solve, despite all of my training efforts. 317 00:22:32,460 --> 00:22:35,820 And Fletcher, well, he played around with the box a bit, 318 00:22:35,820 --> 00:22:38,740 but soon seemed to lose interest. 319 00:22:38,740 --> 00:22:43,580 Whilst Bran was so quick that we will have to use a high-speed 320 00:22:43,580 --> 00:22:46,180 camera just to see how he did it. 321 00:22:48,940 --> 00:22:50,500 So the question is, 322 00:22:50,500 --> 00:22:55,420 why are ravens like Bran able to solve problems on their own when 323 00:22:55,420 --> 00:23:00,700 other species, including clever dogs and even young humans, can't. 324 00:23:13,940 --> 00:23:16,540 To find out what abilities the corvids have 325 00:23:16,540 --> 00:23:20,180 that other animals seem to lack, I have come to Cambridge 326 00:23:20,180 --> 00:23:22,620 to meet Professor Nikki Clayton. 327 00:23:22,620 --> 00:23:25,460 She is a world expert on the crow family, 328 00:23:25,460 --> 00:23:29,020 which includes these Eurasian jays. 329 00:23:29,020 --> 00:23:33,180 She sets up experiments to break down the different abilities 330 00:23:33,180 --> 00:23:35,820 that these birds use to solve problems. 331 00:23:35,820 --> 00:23:39,780 And she set one of them, Hoy, a fiendish challenge. 332 00:23:41,020 --> 00:23:43,940 One that wouldn't be out of place in a physics lesson. 333 00:23:45,580 --> 00:23:48,860 She has dropped some wax worms, his favourite food, 334 00:23:48,860 --> 00:23:51,460 into a tube of water, out of reach. 335 00:23:51,460 --> 00:23:56,540 So the bird needs to work out how to raise the water level. 336 00:23:59,700 --> 00:24:01,820 Nikki, let's see what's going on, then. 337 00:24:01,820 --> 00:24:04,500 Fire up the laptop and see what he is up to. I will do. 338 00:24:05,620 --> 00:24:08,700 Nikki's birds have minimal human contact, 339 00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:11,180 so we're watching Hoy from a safe distance. 340 00:24:12,500 --> 00:24:17,460 Straight away, he starts dropping stones into the water. 341 00:24:17,460 --> 00:24:18,780 They are quite specific 342 00:24:18,780 --> 00:24:20,500 about what they use, actually, 343 00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:22,140 and how many stones. 344 00:24:22,140 --> 00:24:24,340 They don't put more stones in than they need. 345 00:24:24,340 --> 00:24:29,380 He is checking the water rise every time he puts the stone in. Yeah. 346 00:24:29,380 --> 00:24:32,940 He pops up and you can see the eye looking down. Look at that. 347 00:24:34,540 --> 00:24:37,380 Look at that, the small stone wasn't going to be enough. No. 348 00:24:39,620 --> 00:24:40,620 There we go, go on. 349 00:24:42,820 --> 00:24:45,300 No, can't quite reach. 350 00:24:45,300 --> 00:24:47,540 You know, Nikki, it is almost 351 00:24:47,540 --> 00:24:51,580 as if he understands the effect of dropping that stone in. 352 00:24:51,580 --> 00:24:55,020 That's right. He only does this when there is liquid in the tube. 353 00:24:55,020 --> 00:24:57,900 If there is a worm in the tube and it's filled with sand, 354 00:24:57,900 --> 00:25:01,100 he doesn't bother. He knows that it needs to be a liquid 355 00:25:01,100 --> 00:25:03,620 in that tube in order for the stones to work. 356 00:25:05,780 --> 00:25:10,980 Hoy understands that a sinking stone will cause the water level 357 00:25:10,980 --> 00:25:15,980 to rise, and this in turn will allow him to reach the wax worm. 358 00:25:15,980 --> 00:25:20,820 He also knows the same technique won't work with sand. 359 00:25:20,820 --> 00:25:26,660 And this reveals the first skill animals need to solve problems - 360 00:25:26,660 --> 00:25:32,020 the ability to understand the rules of cause and effect. 361 00:25:34,540 --> 00:25:36,580 But I am intrigued to know 362 00:25:36,580 --> 00:25:39,740 how Hoy worked all of this out in his mind. 363 00:25:40,980 --> 00:25:45,620 He was trained that, if he drops or knocks a stone 364 00:25:45,620 --> 00:25:47,820 into a tube, he gets a worm. 365 00:25:47,820 --> 00:25:50,460 But in the training apparatus, the worm comes out the bottom, 366 00:25:50,460 --> 00:25:52,300 not out the top, and there is no water. 367 00:25:52,300 --> 00:25:56,740 And having learned to associate stones with tubes to get food, 368 00:25:56,740 --> 00:26:02,300 what he has been able to do is then to transfer this to a novel problem, 369 00:26:02,300 --> 00:26:03,500 where there is water, 370 00:26:03,500 --> 00:26:05,900 where the worm comes out a totally different place. 371 00:26:05,900 --> 00:26:08,940 But he has been able to use his information flexibly 372 00:26:08,940 --> 00:26:10,620 and transfer it to novel problems. 373 00:26:10,620 --> 00:26:13,260 He can join up his knowledge. Exactly. 374 00:26:16,020 --> 00:26:18,940 So, Hoy was able to solve this problem, 375 00:26:18,940 --> 00:26:23,100 because he already knew how to use the stones. 376 00:26:23,100 --> 00:26:26,460 He is able to learn rules for one situation 377 00:26:26,460 --> 00:26:30,140 and then apply those rules to a new scenario. 378 00:26:33,540 --> 00:26:37,620 Scientists call this flexible thinking, 379 00:26:37,620 --> 00:26:42,100 and it is the second skill that animals need to solve problems. 380 00:26:42,100 --> 00:26:48,180 It is how the New Caledonian crow solved the multistage problem 381 00:26:48,180 --> 00:26:53,660 and also how Bran made such short work of my puzzle box. 382 00:26:56,300 --> 00:26:59,300 The birds were thinking flexibly, 383 00:26:59,300 --> 00:27:03,180 using previous experience to solve new problems. 384 00:27:05,300 --> 00:27:10,740 And it is an ability that seems sadly missing in my dogs. 385 00:27:10,740 --> 00:27:13,780 Lift the ball, please! Lift it! Lift it! 386 00:27:15,300 --> 00:27:20,180 Is that why Bran, the raven, so convincingly trounced my dogs? 387 00:27:20,180 --> 00:27:22,300 It's exactly that, yeah. 388 00:27:22,300 --> 00:27:24,500 So, the dogs can learn to do something, 389 00:27:24,500 --> 00:27:28,380 but what they can't do is to transfer it to a novel problem. 390 00:27:28,380 --> 00:27:32,100 Yes, I will be gracious in defeat on this account, 391 00:27:32,100 --> 00:27:33,780 given the quality of the opposition. 392 00:27:33,780 --> 00:27:36,900 I suspect, if you had been competing against a pigeon, 393 00:27:36,900 --> 00:27:38,180 you'd have been all right. 394 00:27:38,180 --> 00:27:41,020 They would've even that, that would've been fine. 395 00:27:47,700 --> 00:27:51,500 So, why are some animals better at solving problems than others? 396 00:27:52,940 --> 00:27:56,180 It is something we don't yet fully understand. 397 00:27:56,180 --> 00:27:59,460 But one thing that we do know is that the answer lies 398 00:27:59,460 --> 00:28:01,420 somewhere in here - 399 00:28:01,420 --> 00:28:04,980 the animal brain itself. 400 00:28:04,980 --> 00:28:09,020 Here are a couple of very interesting specimens. 401 00:28:09,020 --> 00:28:13,460 This one is the brain of a dog, in this case a terrier. 402 00:28:13,460 --> 00:28:17,340 And this one here is the brain of a crow. 403 00:28:17,340 --> 00:28:20,820 And it is immediately apparent that the dog's brain is about twice 404 00:28:20,820 --> 00:28:23,140 the size of that of the bird. 405 00:28:23,140 --> 00:28:25,900 So, we might imagine, simplistically, therefore, 406 00:28:25,900 --> 00:28:28,820 that the dog is a more intelligent animal. 407 00:28:28,820 --> 00:28:32,380 But we already know that the crow 408 00:28:32,380 --> 00:28:35,620 can solve problems that the dog can't. 409 00:28:35,620 --> 00:28:37,500 So, clearly, there is 410 00:28:37,500 --> 00:28:40,700 more to cleverness than just the size of the brain. 411 00:28:45,380 --> 00:28:49,060 To investigate what that could be, I have gathered together 412 00:28:49,060 --> 00:28:51,700 a range of preserved animal brains. 413 00:28:53,420 --> 00:28:57,380 If I arrange them in order of body size, a pattern emerges. 414 00:28:59,620 --> 00:29:03,060 The bigger the animal, the bigger the brain. 415 00:29:06,340 --> 00:29:10,060 It seems that the more body you have, the more brain cells 416 00:29:10,060 --> 00:29:12,180 you need to control it. 417 00:29:16,060 --> 00:29:17,580 In other words, there is 418 00:29:17,580 --> 00:29:22,140 a relationship between the mass of the body and the mass of the brain. 419 00:29:25,980 --> 00:29:29,260 And roughly speaking, it is a straight line. 420 00:29:31,500 --> 00:29:35,380 The dog lies pretty much bang on the line here, which is 421 00:29:35,380 --> 00:29:37,820 where you'd expect it, given its body size. 422 00:29:37,820 --> 00:29:42,060 And in fact, most animals lie very close to the line. 423 00:29:42,060 --> 00:29:46,820 But some sit above the line, like we humans. 424 00:29:46,820 --> 00:29:51,220 Our brains are very large for our body size. 425 00:29:51,220 --> 00:29:53,860 But what about the crow? 426 00:29:53,860 --> 00:29:58,460 The crow's brain is also above the line. It is up here, 427 00:29:58,460 --> 00:30:00,940 which means that its brain is bigger 428 00:30:00,940 --> 00:30:04,220 than we would expect just given its body size. 429 00:30:04,220 --> 00:30:06,820 In fact, it is about twice the size. 430 00:30:06,820 --> 00:30:08,860 Now, bizarre as it may seem, 431 00:30:08,860 --> 00:30:12,580 the dog's brain is physically twice the size of the crow's, 432 00:30:12,580 --> 00:30:17,580 but relative to its body size, the crow's brain is bigger than the dog. 433 00:30:17,580 --> 00:30:22,980 So, perhaps this extra mental power will allow the crow to 434 00:30:22,980 --> 00:30:27,700 think in a more complicated and more flexible way than the dog. 435 00:30:29,780 --> 00:30:35,700 And the crow isn't alone in having a brain twice as big as we'd expect. 436 00:30:35,700 --> 00:30:40,060 In fact, it is in the company of another animal 437 00:30:40,060 --> 00:30:45,060 known not only for its big brain but also its cleverness. 438 00:30:48,060 --> 00:30:51,100 It is our nearest relative - the chimpanzee. 439 00:30:54,180 --> 00:30:58,500 And the chimpanzee holds a special place in the history of science. 440 00:31:00,020 --> 00:31:03,900 In the 1960s, a young British scientist, Jane Goodall, 441 00:31:03,900 --> 00:31:09,820 observed chimps doing something that no-one thought animals capable of - 442 00:31:09,820 --> 00:31:11,140 using tools. 443 00:31:13,340 --> 00:31:17,340 I saw this dark shape hunched over a termite mound. 444 00:31:17,340 --> 00:31:20,380 He's making arm movements as though he's sliding it 445 00:31:20,380 --> 00:31:23,020 across the ground and obviously eating. 446 00:31:23,020 --> 00:31:24,820 But that was all I saw. 447 00:31:24,820 --> 00:31:27,500 And I went up to the heap and there were 448 00:31:27,500 --> 00:31:31,620 the pieces of grass lying there, termites moving about the surface. 449 00:31:31,620 --> 00:31:33,980 So I picked up one of these abandoned tools 450 00:31:33,980 --> 00:31:37,340 and pushed it into the mound, and the termites bit on. 451 00:31:37,340 --> 00:31:39,060 It was pretty obvious. 452 00:31:45,380 --> 00:31:49,820 Goodall had observed the chimps using blades of grass as tools 453 00:31:49,820 --> 00:31:51,660 to fish for termites. 454 00:31:53,140 --> 00:31:56,740 It was a discovery of immense significance, 455 00:31:56,740 --> 00:32:00,180 as her PhD supervisor immediately realised. 456 00:32:01,500 --> 00:32:05,220 And he sent his famous reply, "Now we have to redefine man, 457 00:32:05,220 --> 00:32:08,620 "redefine tool or accept chimpanzees as humans." 458 00:32:12,380 --> 00:32:16,420 Goodall's discovery shattered our ideas about what sets us 459 00:32:16,420 --> 00:32:19,700 apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. 460 00:32:19,700 --> 00:32:22,260 We had to accept that animals were cleverer 461 00:32:22,260 --> 00:32:24,660 than we'd given them credit for. 462 00:32:27,220 --> 00:32:30,460 It also gave researchers new insights into how 463 00:32:30,460 --> 00:32:34,940 our ancient ancestors might themselves have solved problems. 464 00:32:36,260 --> 00:32:38,260 And as we have discovered, 465 00:32:38,260 --> 00:32:42,220 chimps are not alone in being able to use tools. 466 00:32:42,220 --> 00:32:45,460 It is something that crows can do, too. 467 00:32:57,900 --> 00:33:02,620 To me, what is so important about using tools is that it reveals 468 00:33:02,620 --> 00:33:07,340 the next crucial ability that an animal needs to solve problems. 469 00:33:11,500 --> 00:33:14,100 For example, take this stick. 470 00:33:14,100 --> 00:33:16,620 If I want to use this as a tool, 471 00:33:16,620 --> 00:33:19,620 I need to be able to see it for more than what it is. 472 00:33:19,620 --> 00:33:24,460 More than just a piece of wood, what a piece of wood might be. 473 00:33:24,460 --> 00:33:26,180 What might it be? 474 00:33:26,180 --> 00:33:30,180 Well, I could sharpen one end and I could perhaps use it as a spear. 475 00:33:30,180 --> 00:33:32,820 Or I could set fire to it to generate some heat. 476 00:33:32,820 --> 00:33:35,460 When I'm going through these thought processes, 477 00:33:35,460 --> 00:33:38,380 there is no doubt that I am using flexible thinking, 478 00:33:38,380 --> 00:33:40,940 understanding the rules of cause-and-effect, 479 00:33:40,940 --> 00:33:45,620 but I am also using a type of thinking which is innovative. 480 00:33:45,620 --> 00:33:49,340 What I am using is imagination. 481 00:33:49,340 --> 00:33:51,980 I'm not just seeing the world as it is now, 482 00:33:51,980 --> 00:33:56,260 I am seeing the world how it could be. 483 00:33:56,260 --> 00:33:59,860 And this raises a very profound question. 484 00:33:59,860 --> 00:34:04,460 Could any other species of animal have an attribute 485 00:34:04,460 --> 00:34:08,100 so significantly human as imagination? 486 00:34:14,460 --> 00:34:18,060 To answer this question, I have come to Austria to meet a rather 487 00:34:18,060 --> 00:34:20,540 inquisitive and endearing type of bird. 488 00:34:21,980 --> 00:34:25,700 And this time it is not a member of the crow family. 489 00:34:25,700 --> 00:34:29,700 These are Goffins cockatoos, a type of parrot. 490 00:34:32,420 --> 00:34:36,500 Big-brained birds with a very curious nature. 491 00:34:39,860 --> 00:34:42,180 Can I have that back? Thank you. 492 00:34:44,340 --> 00:34:47,340 And I am here to meet Dr Alice Auersperg, 493 00:34:47,340 --> 00:34:49,380 an expert in these animals. 494 00:34:51,620 --> 00:34:54,660 She is studying their ability to innovate. 495 00:34:54,660 --> 00:34:57,500 And I am intrigued to know what that might reveal 496 00:34:57,500 --> 00:34:59,780 about their powers of imagination. 497 00:35:01,540 --> 00:35:05,860 Alice, these birds are very keen to get to know me, it seems. Yes. 498 00:35:05,860 --> 00:35:09,180 They are especially interested in you because you are new. 499 00:35:10,860 --> 00:35:13,980 And it is not just me that is new. 500 00:35:13,980 --> 00:35:16,300 So is the entire crew. 501 00:35:19,980 --> 00:35:22,100 And everything that we are wearing. 502 00:35:24,340 --> 00:35:29,100 My watch, in particular, has caught the attention of Olympia here. 503 00:35:29,100 --> 00:35:30,820 And within minutes, 504 00:35:30,820 --> 00:35:33,300 she has worked out how to release the clasp. 505 00:35:33,300 --> 00:35:36,500 When they find you, a human, inside the aviary, 506 00:35:36,500 --> 00:35:40,580 they look for everything that looks different on your body, 507 00:35:40,580 --> 00:35:43,420 like your shirt buttons or the shoe laces or your watch. 508 00:35:43,420 --> 00:35:45,620 They go specifically for that 509 00:35:45,620 --> 00:35:47,980 and they stay with it for a very long time. 510 00:35:47,980 --> 00:35:50,900 You like my shiny watch, don't you? 511 00:35:50,900 --> 00:35:54,660 Alice, I think I've had enough of being pecked and probed 512 00:35:54,660 --> 00:35:57,660 and pulled by your rather wonderful cockatoos. 513 00:35:57,660 --> 00:36:00,100 I'd like to see them in action now, mental action. 514 00:36:00,100 --> 00:36:03,140 Look, the watch is off again. 515 00:36:03,140 --> 00:36:06,500 Come on, I know you can steal my watch, but what more can you do? 516 00:36:08,620 --> 00:36:12,460 To investigate what is going on in the minds of these parrots, 517 00:36:12,460 --> 00:36:16,780 Alice created this - the lockbox. 518 00:36:16,780 --> 00:36:19,580 Trapped inside is a tasty nut, 519 00:36:19,580 --> 00:36:23,340 held securely behind this elaborate locking mechanism. 520 00:36:25,060 --> 00:36:26,580 To see how it opens, 521 00:36:26,580 --> 00:36:30,860 we need to employ the services of a master safe-cracker. 522 00:36:30,860 --> 00:36:34,620 Or Muppet, as he is perhaps inappropriately called. 523 00:36:34,620 --> 00:36:38,900 Before we begin, though, there is the question of eyewear. 524 00:36:40,460 --> 00:36:43,340 If you want to start, we have to put sunglasses on 525 00:36:43,340 --> 00:36:45,980 because we could cue the birds with our eye movements. 526 00:36:45,980 --> 00:36:49,060 Can they see where we are looking? Do they have the ability to do that? 527 00:36:49,060 --> 00:36:51,420 We don't know whether this species can, 528 00:36:51,420 --> 00:36:55,620 but it has been proven that some can follow the eye movement of humans. 529 00:36:55,620 --> 00:36:56,980 Better safe than sorry. 530 00:36:56,980 --> 00:37:01,260 We'll forgive fashion for that and make scientific progress. 531 00:37:01,260 --> 00:37:03,980 And here comes Muppet. He's out. 532 00:37:07,340 --> 00:37:09,580 Oh, he is displaying towards you. A little bit of display. 533 00:37:09,580 --> 00:37:11,380 Yes, he's a boy now. 534 00:37:12,700 --> 00:37:15,220 Very nice, yes. That is a crest of some distinction. 535 00:37:15,220 --> 00:37:17,780 I had one like that in the 1980s myself. 536 00:37:17,780 --> 00:37:21,340 But perhaps, Muppet, you could take your attention to the lock? 537 00:37:23,420 --> 00:37:25,980 Muppet has done this before, 538 00:37:25,980 --> 00:37:30,580 and he delivers...a masterclass. 539 00:37:30,580 --> 00:37:34,300 He quickly removes the pin and then the screw. 540 00:37:39,820 --> 00:37:44,260 He discards the central bolt before shifting the locking wheel. 541 00:37:48,500 --> 00:37:50,900 And this releases the final bolt. 542 00:37:50,900 --> 00:37:52,380 Voila! 543 00:37:52,380 --> 00:37:54,460 He has reached the nut inside. 544 00:37:58,700 --> 00:38:01,860 Wow. I should have timed it, shouldn't I? 545 00:38:03,780 --> 00:38:08,020 But to make sure that Muppet can't learn the sequence by heart, 546 00:38:08,020 --> 00:38:13,740 Alice can swap the lock sections around or even remove them entirely. 547 00:38:13,740 --> 00:38:18,420 So now I want to change the way in which the box works 548 00:38:18,420 --> 00:38:23,700 and set Muppet a new challenge, one that he has never seen before. 549 00:38:25,340 --> 00:38:28,500 There are five parts. Why don't we take out the middle bit? 550 00:38:28,500 --> 00:38:30,820 Take out the bolt. Yes, let's. 551 00:38:30,820 --> 00:38:33,940 The upper section is now redundant, 552 00:38:33,940 --> 00:38:37,700 leaving only the lower parts in operation. 553 00:38:37,700 --> 00:38:41,180 It may look like we have made it easier, but in fact, 554 00:38:41,180 --> 00:38:46,260 we have created an entirely new problem with a different solution. 555 00:38:46,260 --> 00:38:51,140 If Muppet can't see this, he will just repeat what he did before, 556 00:38:51,140 --> 00:38:54,260 and robotically go for the pin at the top. 557 00:38:54,260 --> 00:38:57,620 But if he can see the new problem 558 00:38:57,620 --> 00:39:00,660 and imagine a new solution, 559 00:39:00,660 --> 00:39:03,500 then he will go straight for the wheel. 560 00:39:03,500 --> 00:39:06,780 OK, Alice, let's... let's give him a go. 561 00:39:06,780 --> 00:39:10,220 So now, the moment of truth. 562 00:39:15,180 --> 00:39:17,620 He has gone straight for the wheel. 563 00:39:21,380 --> 00:39:23,300 And then the bar. 564 00:39:25,260 --> 00:39:28,500 And he's in in less than ten seconds. 565 00:39:30,740 --> 00:39:34,180 Muppet got it right first time. 566 00:39:34,180 --> 00:39:38,660 And that gives us a crucial insight into his mind. 567 00:39:38,660 --> 00:39:43,900 He must have looked at the problem, worked it out in his head 568 00:39:43,900 --> 00:39:47,700 and imagined the solution. 569 00:39:49,620 --> 00:39:52,060 That was a hard-earned nut. 570 00:39:58,300 --> 00:40:05,220 So imagination is the third ability that animals need to solve problems. 571 00:40:05,220 --> 00:40:08,180 It's a skill that seems to allow them to work out 572 00:40:08,180 --> 00:40:13,180 new solutions in their heads before putting them into practice. 573 00:40:20,260 --> 00:40:23,740 Up until now, all of the animals that we've looked at 574 00:40:23,740 --> 00:40:26,060 have used their imagination to solve problems 575 00:40:26,060 --> 00:40:28,820 which are sat right in front of them 576 00:40:28,820 --> 00:40:31,460 but we humans can do so much more than that. 577 00:40:31,460 --> 00:40:35,100 We use our imagination to project into the future, 578 00:40:35,100 --> 00:40:37,180 to see problems coming 579 00:40:37,180 --> 00:40:40,020 and think about how we are going to solve them. 580 00:40:40,020 --> 00:40:44,820 Until now, we've always thought of that as a purely human attribute 581 00:40:44,820 --> 00:40:49,620 but what I want to know is can these clever animals do that too? 582 00:40:53,820 --> 00:40:56,220 There is a common behaviour in the animal world 583 00:40:56,220 --> 00:40:59,260 that seems to be about planning for the future. 584 00:40:59,260 --> 00:41:02,100 It's called caching. 585 00:41:02,100 --> 00:41:04,580 It's what squirrels do in the autumn, 586 00:41:04,580 --> 00:41:06,820 hiding nuts in the ground so they can be dug up 587 00:41:06,820 --> 00:41:08,980 and eaten over the winter months. 588 00:41:15,340 --> 00:41:17,980 But if caching were an Olympic sport 589 00:41:17,980 --> 00:41:21,460 then the corvids would be the gold medallists. 590 00:41:21,460 --> 00:41:25,900 Most of them seem to do it, much to the annoyance of the squirrels. 591 00:41:33,820 --> 00:41:37,260 And this American corvid, the Clark's nutcracker, 592 00:41:37,260 --> 00:41:39,300 is the caching king. 593 00:41:40,420 --> 00:41:44,380 Researchers have observed how every year it can store 594 00:41:44,380 --> 00:41:49,100 and remember the location of thousands of different seeds. 595 00:41:52,900 --> 00:41:56,220 This bird truly is the master of memory. 596 00:42:05,100 --> 00:42:07,340 But is this just another example 597 00:42:07,340 --> 00:42:10,380 of instinctive behaviour to survive the winter? 598 00:42:10,380 --> 00:42:15,060 Or is there something far more complex going on? 599 00:42:15,060 --> 00:42:19,540 It's a question that's greatly intrigued Professor Nicky Clayton. 600 00:42:21,140 --> 00:42:23,180 She studies Western scrub-jays, 601 00:42:23,180 --> 00:42:27,860 another American corvid renowned for its caching behaviour. 602 00:42:27,860 --> 00:42:32,140 Nicky wanted to discover whether they could do more 603 00:42:32,140 --> 00:42:35,860 than just remember where they buried food in the past. 604 00:42:36,980 --> 00:42:42,060 If they can travel back in their mind's eye to think about the past, 605 00:42:42,060 --> 00:42:46,700 can they also travel forward in the mind's eye to think about the future? 606 00:42:46,700 --> 00:42:50,340 Can they imagine the future, if you like? Can they plan ahead? 607 00:42:54,820 --> 00:42:56,900 To find out, Nicky created an experiment 608 00:42:56,900 --> 00:43:00,540 based on a very human annoyance - 609 00:43:00,540 --> 00:43:03,620 waking up to find that breakfast is off the menu. 610 00:43:04,820 --> 00:43:08,260 For six days, the birds were housed in this aviary, 611 00:43:08,260 --> 00:43:10,700 split into three zones. 612 00:43:10,700 --> 00:43:13,740 In the middle is the dining room, 613 00:43:13,740 --> 00:43:16,460 where the birds were fed during the day, 614 00:43:16,460 --> 00:43:20,780 and at either end are the bedrooms, where they were kept at night. 615 00:43:20,780 --> 00:43:23,420 But there is a twist. 616 00:43:23,420 --> 00:43:25,820 Kept overnight in this bedroom, 617 00:43:25,820 --> 00:43:29,180 the birds were served an early breakfast 618 00:43:29,180 --> 00:43:31,940 but kept overnight in this one, 619 00:43:31,940 --> 00:43:35,900 they got no breakfast and went hungry until mid-morning. 620 00:43:39,140 --> 00:43:43,180 The birds experienced this daily routine for almost a week. 621 00:43:45,220 --> 00:43:48,900 We give them three experiences of waking up in the hungry room 622 00:43:48,900 --> 00:43:53,380 and three experiences of waking up in the room that serves breakfast. 623 00:43:53,380 --> 00:43:55,820 But the important point is the birds themselves 624 00:43:55,820 --> 00:43:58,820 didn't know which room they would end up in on any given day. 625 00:44:03,380 --> 00:44:06,380 But then Nicky changed the test. 626 00:44:06,380 --> 00:44:11,260 She allowed the birds to cache food in the evening before bedtime. 627 00:44:12,660 --> 00:44:17,900 She placed caching trays in both the hungry and breakfast rooms. 628 00:44:17,900 --> 00:44:21,580 The question was where would they choose to store the food? 629 00:44:23,220 --> 00:44:27,260 Nicky wanted to know if the birds could use their past experience 630 00:44:27,260 --> 00:44:31,940 of the two different rooms and plan for the future, 631 00:44:31,940 --> 00:44:34,620 namely for breakfast time tomorrow. 632 00:44:36,060 --> 00:44:38,580 The results left no doubt. 633 00:44:41,220 --> 00:44:44,100 What we found is that the birds cache about five times 634 00:44:44,100 --> 00:44:48,740 as much in the hungry room as they cache in the breakfast room. 635 00:44:50,020 --> 00:44:53,500 They can imagine what they are going to need the following morning when 636 00:44:53,500 --> 00:44:58,140 they wake up hungry so they can solve a problem before it's even happened. 637 00:44:59,380 --> 00:45:03,780 So what this experiment shows is that the birds can plan for the future. 638 00:45:03,780 --> 00:45:08,940 So the jays' caching behaviour is far more than mere instinct. 639 00:45:08,940 --> 00:45:11,980 They have a grasp of the past, 640 00:45:11,980 --> 00:45:17,260 but can also anticipate future needs and, crucially, plan for it. 641 00:45:17,260 --> 00:45:20,940 This skill is very rare in the animal kingdom 642 00:45:20,940 --> 00:45:26,180 and it's the fourth key ability needed to solve problems. 643 00:45:26,180 --> 00:45:28,140 It's called mental time travel. 644 00:45:29,740 --> 00:45:32,380 It's the ability to go backwards 645 00:45:32,380 --> 00:45:36,500 and forwards in the mind's eye, so it's about projecting yourself 646 00:45:36,500 --> 00:45:41,260 in time to remember the past and to imagine the future. 647 00:45:46,300 --> 00:45:50,580 In humans, mental time travel is a skill that takes a while to develop. 648 00:45:52,380 --> 00:45:54,340 We're not born with it. 649 00:45:54,340 --> 00:45:58,700 These children are about to undergo the sweetie challenge. 650 00:45:58,700 --> 00:46:00,740 The task is simple. 651 00:46:00,740 --> 00:46:03,540 Each child is given a sweet. 652 00:46:03,540 --> 00:46:05,860 They are told that, if they leave it uneaten, 653 00:46:05,860 --> 00:46:08,860 they will get a second one 15 minutes later. 654 00:46:10,060 --> 00:46:15,780 The question is, can they plan for a future in which they have two sweets 655 00:46:15,780 --> 00:46:21,460 or will the lure of instant gratification be too much? 656 00:46:21,460 --> 00:46:25,540 It's a skill that children acquire as they get older. 657 00:46:27,340 --> 00:46:31,420 I think this kind of cognitive capacity is highly sophisticated. 658 00:46:31,420 --> 00:46:34,540 We know that young children don't start developing 659 00:46:34,540 --> 00:46:37,780 these kind of skills until they are at least four years of age. 660 00:46:39,820 --> 00:46:42,780 Clearly, if you are a bird or a human, 661 00:46:42,780 --> 00:46:46,420 it's no bad thing to be a mental time traveller. 662 00:46:53,740 --> 00:46:56,180 When we look at the world's cleverest creatures, 663 00:46:56,180 --> 00:46:59,820 we see a group of very different animals - 664 00:46:59,820 --> 00:47:02,700 the great apes, the corvids, the parrots. 665 00:47:02,700 --> 00:47:05,940 And yet, they all think a little bit like we do. 666 00:47:07,220 --> 00:47:11,180 They have the ability to understand cause and effect 667 00:47:11,180 --> 00:47:16,460 and can utilise this understanding in new and novel situations. 668 00:47:16,460 --> 00:47:20,740 They can also implement imagination and this allows them 669 00:47:20,740 --> 00:47:24,620 to think ahead, to plan in the future. 670 00:47:24,620 --> 00:47:28,700 Now, together, these abilities allow them 671 00:47:28,700 --> 00:47:32,860 something which is incredibly rare in the animal world. 672 00:47:32,860 --> 00:47:36,980 It's the power to reason, the power to solve problems. 673 00:47:38,460 --> 00:47:41,340 But of course, it also raises another question - 674 00:47:41,340 --> 00:47:44,020 what is so special about this group of animals? 675 00:47:44,020 --> 00:47:47,180 What could they possibly have in common? 676 00:47:52,220 --> 00:47:56,100 To answer that, I want to look in a very different environment. 677 00:48:04,060 --> 00:48:06,900 'Here on the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, 678 00:48:06,900 --> 00:48:09,140 'I'm seeking out an elusive creature.' 679 00:48:12,540 --> 00:48:16,500 It's a creature that's as different from a bird or a chimp 680 00:48:16,500 --> 00:48:19,060 as it's possible to be. 681 00:48:21,100 --> 00:48:24,940 Now, this beautiful animal is a common octopus. 682 00:48:24,940 --> 00:48:27,820 Don't worry too much about it being out of water. 683 00:48:27,820 --> 00:48:32,060 They will frequently move over land, between rock pools like these, 684 00:48:32,060 --> 00:48:34,580 so he will be OK for a while. 685 00:48:34,580 --> 00:48:38,140 It lives in a world which is very alien to us - 686 00:48:38,140 --> 00:48:41,420 rock pools and rocky caverns on the coast here. 687 00:48:41,420 --> 00:48:44,660 And as a consequence, its anatomy is very different. 688 00:48:44,660 --> 00:48:47,100 Inside this animal, there are three hearts 689 00:48:47,100 --> 00:48:50,340 but perhaps the most profound difference of all is its brain. 690 00:48:57,660 --> 00:49:00,500 The octopus brain is spread around the body. 691 00:49:05,380 --> 00:49:08,660 Each leg even has its own mini brain to control it. 692 00:49:10,460 --> 00:49:13,540 It's nothing like the one-stop shop that we have. 693 00:49:14,940 --> 00:49:19,380 But what's extraordinary is this animal has problem-solving abilities 694 00:49:19,380 --> 00:49:22,420 similar to those of the great apes... 695 00:49:24,100 --> 00:49:26,700 ..the parrots and the crows. 696 00:49:30,980 --> 00:49:35,420 This is a veined octopus just off the coast of Indonesia. 697 00:49:35,420 --> 00:49:39,580 In this environment, it is very exposed to predators 698 00:49:39,580 --> 00:49:41,660 but it has worked out a solution. 699 00:49:44,180 --> 00:49:46,980 It's found a discarded coconut shell 700 00:49:46,980 --> 00:49:49,660 and despite being an unfamiliar object, 701 00:49:49,660 --> 00:49:52,500 the octopus sees its potential. 702 00:49:52,500 --> 00:49:58,180 It tries it on for size before picking it up and carrying it away. 703 00:49:58,180 --> 00:50:02,020 Now, when a threat appears, it has a place to hide 704 00:50:02,020 --> 00:50:05,180 and it can retreat inside its coconut sanctuary. 705 00:50:06,740 --> 00:50:10,020 This is an example of an octopus using tools. 706 00:50:11,380 --> 00:50:15,460 It seems to be using all the key abilities we've seen 707 00:50:15,460 --> 00:50:18,700 in the cleverest animals on land. 708 00:50:18,700 --> 00:50:22,660 So what can the octopus, with its strange brain, 709 00:50:22,660 --> 00:50:26,820 possibly have in common with apes and birds? 710 00:50:26,820 --> 00:50:29,060 When animals are very different, 711 00:50:29,060 --> 00:50:33,340 then the similarities can actually be a lot easier to see 712 00:50:33,340 --> 00:50:36,660 and we have to look beyond the fact that birds can fly, 713 00:50:36,660 --> 00:50:39,820 apes have dextrous hands 714 00:50:39,820 --> 00:50:42,660 or that octopus actually move on their eight arms. 715 00:50:42,660 --> 00:50:44,580 We have to not concentrate so much 716 00:50:44,580 --> 00:50:46,740 on the physical nature of these animals, 717 00:50:46,740 --> 00:50:49,940 but look at the things that have made them what they are. 718 00:50:49,940 --> 00:50:52,620 And when we do that, a pattern emerges. 719 00:50:57,100 --> 00:51:02,020 For instance, all these animals eat a wide variety of foods 720 00:51:02,020 --> 00:51:05,540 and need to master different techniques in order to obtain them. 721 00:51:07,140 --> 00:51:12,100 They crack, they pluck and they hunt. 722 00:51:13,940 --> 00:51:16,580 Our own omnivorous diet isn't too different. 723 00:51:18,860 --> 00:51:23,100 And all these animals tend to be both predator and prey. 724 00:51:26,340 --> 00:51:29,780 Which is also true of our own ancient ancestors 725 00:51:29,780 --> 00:51:32,820 on the plains of Africa, millions of years ago. 726 00:51:32,820 --> 00:51:36,380 So it seems that, to live flexibly, 727 00:51:36,380 --> 00:51:39,140 you have to be able to think flexibly. 728 00:51:40,340 --> 00:51:44,420 But there is something else that the supreme problem solvers - 729 00:51:44,420 --> 00:51:47,260 the apes, the corvids and the parrots - share. 730 00:51:48,540 --> 00:51:51,900 They live in groups. 731 00:51:53,140 --> 00:51:55,580 So whether they walk, swim or fly, 732 00:51:55,580 --> 00:51:58,260 the supreme problem solvers of the animal kingdom are not 733 00:51:58,260 --> 00:52:02,180 so different from one another as we might have first imagined 734 00:52:02,180 --> 00:52:05,260 and, although their minds are not as potent as ours, 735 00:52:05,260 --> 00:52:07,340 their powers to reason 736 00:52:07,340 --> 00:52:11,260 and even exercise imagination are quite remarkable. 737 00:52:11,260 --> 00:52:16,420 But then, up until now, we have been looking at them as individuals. 738 00:52:16,420 --> 00:52:20,020 What I want to understand next is do they have the capacity, 739 00:52:20,020 --> 00:52:23,820 like humans, to actually share the solutions to problems? 740 00:52:23,820 --> 00:52:28,300 In short, if they come up with a good idea, can they pass it on? 741 00:52:40,340 --> 00:52:44,540 On New Caledonia, the crows have lots of good ideas. 742 00:52:47,180 --> 00:52:49,620 They are precision tool makers. 743 00:52:51,660 --> 00:52:54,500 This one is in the process of doing something 744 00:52:54,500 --> 00:52:57,740 we would normally expect only of humans. 745 00:52:57,740 --> 00:53:01,940 It's crafting a hook that it's going to use to catch its prey. 746 00:53:03,220 --> 00:53:06,060 It's an astounding behaviour. 747 00:53:11,060 --> 00:53:14,620 Dr Alex Taylor and his colleagues are now investigating whether 748 00:53:14,620 --> 00:53:19,300 these birds are able to share their tool-making skills with each other. 749 00:53:20,740 --> 00:53:23,140 That is amazing. 750 00:53:23,140 --> 00:53:25,780 So they have sculpted a little hook out of another piece 751 00:53:25,780 --> 00:53:28,220 of the twig that formerly would have run out here. 752 00:53:28,220 --> 00:53:32,660 It's beautiful. It's almost like a primitive human tool, isn't it? 753 00:53:32,660 --> 00:53:35,540 It does appear that way. 754 00:53:35,540 --> 00:53:38,540 We talk about the imposition of three-dimensional form 755 00:53:38,540 --> 00:53:40,620 onto a natural object. 756 00:53:40,620 --> 00:53:43,460 That's something that humans have only been able to do 757 00:53:43,460 --> 00:53:45,700 for the last 100,000 or 200,000 years 758 00:53:45,700 --> 00:53:48,420 and here we have a crow doing something very similar. 759 00:53:48,420 --> 00:53:51,180 And you can see how that can be useful because a crow would be able 760 00:53:51,180 --> 00:53:54,420 to insert that into a hole and quite literally use that hook 761 00:53:54,420 --> 00:53:56,740 to draw out a grub or anything else it was after. 762 00:53:56,740 --> 00:53:58,820 Absolutely. 763 00:53:58,820 --> 00:54:03,500 Made by a bird! That is absolutely brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! 764 00:54:06,460 --> 00:54:09,460 And of even more interest to Alex are these - 765 00:54:09,460 --> 00:54:13,540 intricately cut tools from the leaves of the pandanus tree. 766 00:54:14,860 --> 00:54:16,900 Unlike the hooks, 767 00:54:16,900 --> 00:54:20,620 there are distantly different types of pandanus tool. 768 00:54:20,620 --> 00:54:23,020 They differ in complexity, 769 00:54:23,020 --> 00:54:27,740 ranging from a simple leaf fragment to multistep implements like these. 770 00:54:28,940 --> 00:54:30,980 And across the island, 771 00:54:30,980 --> 00:54:35,020 different groups of crows use different types of these tools. 772 00:54:38,300 --> 00:54:42,580 In the south, many different fragments are found 773 00:54:42,580 --> 00:54:44,620 that, as we move north, 774 00:54:44,620 --> 00:54:48,860 the crows start to favour more complex, multi-staged tools. 775 00:54:50,260 --> 00:54:52,940 It means the different groups of crows 776 00:54:52,940 --> 00:54:55,340 have their own ways of doing things. 777 00:54:56,780 --> 00:55:00,620 In human society, we would call this culture. 778 00:55:02,940 --> 00:55:05,940 What we are seeing across New Caledonia is populations 779 00:55:05,940 --> 00:55:07,940 of crows that appear to have traditions 780 00:55:07,940 --> 00:55:11,100 of making single-step tools or two-step or three-step tools 781 00:55:11,100 --> 00:55:14,260 and these traditions are persisting over 10 or 15 years at least, 782 00:55:14,260 --> 00:55:16,940 that's as much...how long we've been studying them for 783 00:55:16,940 --> 00:55:19,540 and we believe they have been there for a lot longer. 784 00:55:19,540 --> 00:55:22,180 It appears there's some kind of transmission of tool design 785 00:55:22,180 --> 00:55:24,820 across the population. 786 00:55:26,140 --> 00:55:29,300 A rare and fascinating glimpse of how this might happen 787 00:55:29,300 --> 00:55:31,340 has been captured on camera. 788 00:55:31,340 --> 00:55:36,020 Here an adult bird is using a stick to probe for grubs inside a log. 789 00:55:40,140 --> 00:55:43,700 A youngster stands by, watching, 790 00:55:43,700 --> 00:55:47,380 as the adult seems to demonstrate the right way to use the tool. 791 00:55:50,500 --> 00:55:52,620 And when the adult departs, 792 00:55:52,620 --> 00:55:55,500 she leaves behind the stick in the hole. 793 00:55:55,500 --> 00:55:59,020 The youngster can now have a go itself. 794 00:55:59,020 --> 00:56:01,140 Although this one has some way to go 795 00:56:01,140 --> 00:56:04,020 before it becomes an expert like its parents. 796 00:56:05,020 --> 00:56:09,940 It seems as though one way ideas can travel through the crow population 797 00:56:09,940 --> 00:56:13,540 is via family groups, the social circle. 798 00:56:14,860 --> 00:56:19,660 But Alex's research suggests something even more extraordinary - 799 00:56:19,660 --> 00:56:24,340 that, with each new generation, the ideas don't stand still 800 00:56:24,340 --> 00:56:26,340 but are honed and improved. 801 00:56:30,420 --> 00:56:33,300 When we talk about this, we talk about the ratchet effect, 802 00:56:33,300 --> 00:56:36,500 which is this idea that it's a really good idea 803 00:56:36,500 --> 00:56:39,460 to be able to copy each other and, as a group, you can end up 804 00:56:39,460 --> 00:56:41,780 being able to build better and better tools. 805 00:56:41,780 --> 00:56:44,620 Obviously, we don't invent the wheel every generation ourselves, 806 00:56:44,620 --> 00:56:47,140 we make it better and better. 807 00:56:47,140 --> 00:56:49,980 Potentially, this is what's going on here with the crows. 808 00:56:49,980 --> 00:56:52,420 There's no concrete evidence that any animal species 809 00:56:52,420 --> 00:56:55,180 is able to actually show this ratcheting up of their technology, 810 00:56:55,180 --> 00:56:57,220 to make it more and more sophisticated. 811 00:56:57,220 --> 00:56:59,300 So it would just be crows and humans? 812 00:56:59,300 --> 00:57:01,700 No chimpanzees? Nothing? At the moment, no. 813 00:57:01,700 --> 00:57:03,740 It's something we think is unique to humans, 814 00:57:03,740 --> 00:57:05,700 but maybe is going on with these crows as well. 815 00:57:10,660 --> 00:57:15,580 The New Caledonian crow has only been studied since the early 1990s. 816 00:57:17,340 --> 00:57:21,620 In that short period, scientists have revealed an animal mind 817 00:57:21,620 --> 00:57:24,580 that rivals the problem-solving skills of our closest cousin, 818 00:57:24,580 --> 00:57:26,500 the chimpanzee. 819 00:57:28,340 --> 00:57:31,980 And for me, the really exciting thing 820 00:57:31,980 --> 00:57:35,860 is that we are just beginning to understand these animals. 821 00:57:35,860 --> 00:57:38,860 Who knows what else they might be capable of? 822 00:57:41,340 --> 00:57:43,780 On this journey, I've come to an understanding 823 00:57:43,780 --> 00:57:46,780 about what makes some animals cleverer than others 824 00:57:46,780 --> 00:57:49,660 and even where that cleverness actually comes from. 825 00:57:52,420 --> 00:57:56,340 And whilst we might reign supreme across the animal kingdom 826 00:57:56,340 --> 00:57:59,420 when it comes to complex thought, we are certainly not alone. 827 00:57:59,420 --> 00:58:02,460 It also seems we may not hold a monopoly 828 00:58:02,460 --> 00:58:05,900 on the ability to share ideas and learn from one another. 829 00:58:05,900 --> 00:58:08,740 So perhaps it's no surprise at all 830 00:58:08,740 --> 00:58:13,020 that the most intelligent animals on our planet are the social ones. 831 00:58:15,660 --> 00:58:18,500 And next time I'll be investigating 832 00:58:18,500 --> 00:58:21,220 the minds of some very social animals. 833 00:58:21,220 --> 00:58:24,860 I'll uncover the secrets of dolphin society, 834 00:58:24,860 --> 00:58:28,860 discover how chimps deceive one another 835 00:58:28,860 --> 00:58:32,020 and learn that we are not alone in mourning our dead.