Tests have revealed that we cannot tell individual crows apart, but crows are very good at recognizing individual human faces. They remember, for example, the faces of those who had captured and banded them, or took a shot at them, and teach other crows to caw in apparent disapproval when they see them; this dislike is passed on to subsequent generations, apparently. Scientists have tested crows by making masks of these disliked humans, which the crows are able also to recognize when others wear them. To make sure they didn't just react to any mask, they employed Dick Cheney masks, which aroused only comparatively mild reactions. To further test their abilities to recognize us, they wore the masks of their oppressors upside-down; the crows, suspicious, turned their own heads upside down, recognized them, and proceeded to berate the wearers. The scientists suppose this is an adaptation to the birds' decidedly ambiguous relationship with our species: in any given territory, some humans love crows, feeding and protecting them, and others just as routinely shoot them. So crows able to recognize human faces have a pronounced advantage--evolution in action. I just heard all this on National Public Radio, and apparently they have some more information, and a quiz to allow you to see if you can recognize crow faces, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106826971 Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]