A new study by University of Cambridge researchers suggests that some birds have the intelligence to solve physical tasks.

What do animals understand about their physical environment? While it is well known that some animals use tools, the question of how much they understand the materials they use is contentious.

The evidence to date suggests that most animals do not ‘have a human-like understanding of the properties of objects and their motion’. In other words, they use simple associations to guide their behaviour.

The Cambridge study suggests that, at least for rooks, this is not the case, and that these birds have the capacity to apply more sophisticated cognition to solving physical tasks. The work is reported by Ms Amanda Seed, Professor Nicola Clayton and colleagues from the Department of Experimental Psychology and Sub-department of Animal Behaviour, and appears in this weeks's Current Biology.

In the study, the researchers used a complex series of ‘trap-tube tasks’ to determine whether rooks had the capacity for complex physical cognition.

Professor Nicola Clayton stated: “An exciting question for future research will be to establish what exactly the rooks understand about the tasks - for example, whether they are able to solve physical tasks by using ‘rule abstraction’.”

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