Weekend reading roundup

[nanila]

How did your weekend reading go? If you planned on anything specifically, did you read it?

Comments

[fred_mouse]

late reply, because every time I think to reply, the books is in a different location...

In the Prologue, Williams addresses animal behaviours as '.. one main field where developments have been spectacular in recent decades.." and then specifically mentions Betty:

".. the sight of Betty the New Caledonian crow becoming an engineer and solving problems with insight, creativity and planning makes me cry with delight. ..."

The interview I listened to that prompted me to acquire the book had more detail about Williams' fascination with Betty and her behaviour, but I don't remember the details of that.

[heliopausa]

Thanks! Armed with that extra clue (ie New Caledonian) I've just been and looked and learned - fascinating! :) (Betty not only deduced she'd need a hooked tool to get to her objective, she manufactured the tool herself!)

[fred_mouse]

Yes! I've gone and looked at some of that at some point. And there is some interesting follow up research that I can't remember the full details of, but some researcher looked at that, looked at their population of crows that had some environmental pressures similar to the New Caledonian ones, and found similar results.

The article I can find with a quick google (here) says Hawaiian crows.