By Victoria Gill Science
reporter, BBC News
14 September 2016
A bird so rare that it is now
extinct in the wild has joined a clever animal elite - the Hawaiian crow
naturally uses tools to reach food.
The bird now joins just one other
corvid - the New Caledonian crow - in this exclusive evolutionary niche.
Dr Christian Rutz from St Andrews
University described his realisation that the bird might be an undiscovered
tool user as a "eureka moment".
"I've been studying New
Caledonian crows for over 10 years now," Dr Rutz told BBC News.
"There are more than 40 species of crows and ravens around the world and
many of them are poorly studied.
"So I wondered if there were
hitherto undiscovered tool users among them."
Previously, Dr Rutz and his
colleagues have reported that New Caledonian crows have particular physical
features - very straight bills and forward-facing eyes. The researchers
suggested these might be tool-using adaptations.
Breeding programme
They then searched the crow
family for species with similar features, and Dr Rutz said he quickly realised
that the "Hawaiian crow was the perfect candidate for further
investigation".
Though it will now be something
of a scientific celebrity, the Hawaiian crow has recently been rescued from the
very brink of extinction.
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