Ravens understand the relations among others

Cognitive biologists revealed that ravens do understand and keep track of the rank relations between other ravens. Such an ability has been known only from primates. Like many social mammals, ravens form different types of social relationships - they may be friends, kin, or partners and they also form strict dominance relations. From a cognitive perspective, understanding one's own relationships to others is a key ability in daily social life ("knowing who is nice or not"). Yet, understanding also the relationships group members have with each other sets the stage for "political" maneuvers ("knowing who might support whom"). A team of researchers led by Thomas Bugnyar of the Department of Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna, set out to test third-party knowledge in captive groups of ravens. Using a playback design, they let individuals hear a dominance interaction between two other ravens.