Crossword puzzles are a fun and engaging way to challenge your knowledge about a particular topic. In this case, the crossword clue “What bird can remember human faces” is likely referring to a specific type of bird known for its ability to recognize and remember human faces. Let’s analyze the clue and see if we can figure out which bird it is describing.
The main requirement here is that the bird must have the ability to remember human faces. This rules out many common bird species that do not have this level of intelligence or recognition skills. We need to think of birds that are known for their high level of intelligence, social skills, and ability to form bonds and relationships with people.
Birds Known for High Intelligence
Certain bird species are well-known for their unusually high intelligence and cognitive abilities compared to other birds. The most likely contenders that could fit this crossword clue are:
Crows | Extremely intelligent, known for remembering human faces |
Parrots | Able to memorize and identify people, some can even learn names |
Pigeons | Shown ability to recognize and differentiate human faces |
Of these options, the top contender based on the specific clue appears to be crows. Crows belong to the corvid family of birds, known for having the largest and most developed brains relative to their body size of any bird group. Researchers have found that crows have excellent facial recognition abilities and can correctly identify people even after many years apart.
The Intelligence and Memory Skills of Crows
Crows have proven in multiple scientific studies that they possess remarkable intelligence and cognitive skills, especially when it comes to recognizing human faces. Here are some of the key research findings that demonstrate why crows are the most likely answer to this crossword clue:
Crows Never Forget a Face
In 2011, a study from the University of Washington showed that crows could remember and identify specific human faces even after 9 years apart from seeing them initially. The crows were able to pick out their original human threat from a series of masked faces simply by seeing the eyes. This proves that crows have exceptional facial recognition memory that can last for many years.
Crows Can Differentiate Between Individual Humans
Crows don’t just generically recognize humans versus other animals or objects. In a 2016 study, researchers at the Universities of Vienna and Oxford found that crows can actually tell individual humans apart without any indicators like clothing or hairstyle. They are able to discriminate one human face from another, suggesting advanced cognitive processing skills.
Crows Associate Faces with Threats or Kindness
Part of why crows remember human faces so well is that they associate them with positive or negative experiences. Crows have been shown to remember kind people who feed them as well as threatening people. In one famous story, crows recognized and dive bombed a man who had captured some of their brethren years earlier, suggesting they associate faces with prior harm.
Crows Recognize Faces of Dangerous People
Crows don’t just generically remember any human faces they come across. In an experiment by University of Washington researchers, crows were conditioned to recognize masked people as threatening or neutral/safe based on whether they trapped and banded crows or simply walked by harmlessly. The crows learned to scold and dive bomb the threatening individuals, indicating their ability to correctly recognize hazardous people specifically based on past facial identification.
Other Unique Mental Abilities of Crows
Besides their exceptional ability to recognize and remember human faces, crows demonstrate other cognitive skills that set them apart from most birds:
Tool Use
Crows are one of only a few species able to create and use tools. They can modify sticks to probe for food and craft hooked tools out of wire to drag items up from small spaces. Their ingenuity and logic help them solve complex access problems.
Cause and Effect
Crows understand connections between cause and effect, such as using traffic to crack hard nuts. They can come up with clever solutions by reasoning out the impact of different actions.
Problem Solving
Crows are great at using insight and logic to solve challenging problems, such as figuring out puzzles, combinations, and brainteasers in experiments. Their versatile intelligence allows them to adapt to new situations.
Communication
Crows have large communication repertoires including facial expressions, body language, and contact calls to share information. They can mimic sounds, invent new calls, and may even be able to communicate abstract concepts.
Deception
Research shows that crows engage in deception, such as tricking competitors out of food sources or misleading predators from their nests. This suggests a complex theory of mind and social cognition.
Conclusion
Based on the extensive research into crows’ intelligence and cognitive abilities, the crossword clue “What bird can remember human faces?” strongly points to the answer being crows. Crows have proven time and again that they possess an incredible capacity for facial recognition and long-term memory of individual human faces. Their ability to accurately identify people they encountered years before demonstrates just how adept crows are at memorizing and discriminating human faces compared to most other animals. No other bird combines such exceptional facial recognition memory with advanced intelligence like crows do. So if you come across this crossword clue, you can confidently fill in “crows” thanks to their unique human face memorization talents.