Crows Sometimes Have Sex With Their Dead

Updated on July 18 at 11:45 p.m. ET*

In April 2015, Kaeli Swift laid a dead crow next to a cherry tree—and waited.

Swift, who studies bird behavior at the University of Washington, had previously shown that crows conduct “funerals” by gathering around the corpses of their peers. Now a film crew had come to capture this behavior.

As if on cue, another crow alighted on a nearby branch and gazed at the cadaver beneath it. Instead of cawing from afar, it flew down and approached the body. Swift wasn’t expecting that, and she certainly wasn’t expecting the crow to then droop its wings, erect its tail, and strut in