Look, Over There!

I have written numerous blogs about how scientists are relentlessly breaking down the barriers we modern humans once thought existed between us and other species of animals. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors saw it differently; they saw themselves as closely related to all things around them—animals, plants, and even rocks. They perceived spirits to be residing in all of these things—including themselves.

But when we humans became agricultural beings, and even later became literate, we found reasons to separate ourselves from and place ourselves above all other creatures. We came to believe that we were special, favored, superior... fundamentally different from all other living things. We liked that feeling.

Science, over the last few centuries, however, has been knocking us down a few pegs—increasingly so in the last few decades. For example, we once considered ourselves to be the only critter smart enough to recognize our own reflected image. Not so. Experiments have demonstrated that many species of animals can do it too. OK, but surely we are the only sophisticated tool maker and implementer; again because of our smarts and that opposable thumb of ours. No again. Well, OK, but no animal has language with our formidable power to communicate with our buddies, right? Again no. As soon as we were able to admit that our definition of language was far too self-centered, we could begin to see that other species have their own exquisite forms of language. Even trees keep in touch with each other, using a very sophisticated set of pheromones, as well as through inter-webbed roots with other trees.

Here is yet another human peg recently knocked down: even lowly ravens have been observed to point out objects to their buddies. It was previously believed that only humans and their close cousins the great apes were able to point to something and have their companions turn their head, follow the finger, and recognize the object. I read a couple of years ago that even dogs can get “the point” and grasp what their owners are trying to show them. I have a pretty bright dog. I've tried this experiment on him, and continue to be surprised when he turns his head in the direction I'm indicating.

But wait. Ravens don't have fingers with which to point, and if they tried to point with a claw, wouldn't they just fall down... or do they point with a wing? Of course, if these birds are that smart, couldn't they figure out how to point some other way—such as using their bills? Yes, and that's exactly what they do. By pointing to food items or nest building materials with their beaks, ravens have been observed to carry out this type of complex communication.

This pointing phenomenon is defined as using “deictic (DIKE-tik) gestures”—ways in which one person (or ape or raven) demonstrates and points out something of interest to a cohort. Young children use deictic gestures even before they develop a spoken language. Hey, they are as smart as a raven!

Knowing how ravens can point, it occurred to me that maybe it'd allow us to capture one of them quite easily. There's an old folk tale that says the way to capture a bird is to put salt on its tail. We could save the salt for dinner and instead point to something behind the raven, and when he turns around to look, we can rush up and grab him.