Crows are smart. Not just for birds, but for any animal. They have been shown to be able to learn some surprisingly complex tasks and solve difficult puzzles when they put their little brains to it.

According to a study published in the journal Science Advances, they are even smart enough to understand geometry. They are the first animal (other than humans) to be able to do this, which makes it remarkable. Scientists have tried to teach baboons to solve geometric puzzles, but were unable, even though baboons are also very smart and regularly work with humans.

This is undoubtedly a proud moment for crows and the humans who were testing them. Cognitive neurobiologist at the University of Tubingen in Germany, Andreas Nieder, talked about the study with NPR, and confidently said:

“Claiming that […] only humans can detect geometric regularity, is now falsified. Because we have at least the crow [also].”

The study trained two crows to be able to identify different geometric shapes out of a group, and choose the one that doesn’t belong. The authors of the study explained what they did:

“The crows were presented with a stimulus array of six simultaneously displayed shapes and had to peck on the outlier (the ‘intruder’) that differed in visual parameters compared to the remaining five base stimuli. The crows successfully applied the general principle of detecting intruders to new stimuli, including simple polygon shapes.”

When the crows picked the shape that didn’t belong, they were rewarded with mealworms, a tasty treat that they love.

Remarkably, once the crows were taught the ‘game,’ they were able to apply the concepts to other shapes on the first try. For the very first test, they were shown very different shapes (flowers and moons). Once they knew the rules, the researchers moved on to something that should be far more difficult: geometric shapes that included squares, rhombi, isotrapezoids, and other quadrilaterals.

The crows “were able to spontaneously detect the intruder the first time they were tested with purely quadrilateral shapes. They could tell us, for instance, if they saw a figure that was just not a square, slightly skewed, among all the other squares,”

The researchers are interested in learning more about how and why crows evolved this ability. They explain:

“All these capabilities, at the end of the day, from a biological point of view, have evolved because they provide a survival advantage or a reproductive advantage. These animals are terribly intelligent so, obviously, evolution found two different ways of giving rise to behaviorally flexible animals.”

It seems that whatever challenge crows are given by scientists, they are able to rise to the occasion (as long as the reward is delicious enough).

The researchers are also hoping that other animals are tested on this because they believe that while crows are the first to be shown to be able to distinguish geometric shapes, they likely aren’t the only ones.

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