Ravens Can Plan for the Future

When you’re a scientist who studies birds as inquisitive and intelligent as ravens, doing experiments is easy. “If they find the task interesting enough, they all line up, and almost fight over who gets to take part in the study,” says Mathias Osvath from Lund University, who keeps 16 of the birds on his farm. As we talk on the phone, I can hear them cawing in the background.

For years, Osvath has been trying to work out if animals have foresight—if species other than humans can plan for the future. And suggest that ravens can. Based on their previous experiences, the birds will select tools that can help them solve a puzzle in the future, or pick up tokens that they can later use to barter for food with human experimenters. And that, Osvath