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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

To lift a crow’s mood, give it a toolkit

Clever crows are more cheerful after wielding simple instruments.
A crow using a tool takes a block of meat from an apparatus

A New Caledonian crow uses a stick to reach some meat. Such activity gives the birds a more optimistic outlook. Credit: Dakota McCoy

Much like humans, crows enjoy using their brains — and become more optimistic when they have the chance to employ tools.

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Nature 572, 157 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02345-6

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