I have encountered Tower of London ravens once in my life, and I was impressed. The ravens there are very bright examples of what is already a very bright animal species; and they did not seem inclined to be trifled with. I probably don’t believe the legend about them and the Tower, but why take the risk?
Raven Munin makes short work of playing Kerplunk. #toweroflondon pic.twitter.com/zpchk11XyU
— Ravenmaster (@ravenmaster1) May 26, 2016
I read somewhere long ago that the small physical size of avian brains is deceptive, that they actually pack a lot more computing power than you’d expect. Mammals’ brains do their thinking in a thin layer of “gray matter” on the outer surface, which is why the more intelligent mammals have brains that are deeply convoluted. Birds’ brains are solid gray matter, so the same amount of smarts packs into a smaller volume. The small, three-dimensional nature of their brains also may make possible some ways of wiring neurons together that aren’t available to mammals.
Dinosaur brains almost certainly had the same configuration …