A TikTok video now going viral on Reddit captures a raven at a FedEx warehouse accepting cookies from a worker. Taking two at a time, the bird stacks them on the ground and picks them all up at once.
The raven returns momentarily to the man before taking off with all four cookies, appearing to acknowledge him. The footage, which was shared on a popular Reddit forum, turned the comment section into an impromptu corvid intelligence seminar.
Watching the video, one user called it an "uncannily smart behavior to see in something that isn't human."
The Redditor wrote: "Wow, the way it holds the crackers and taps them against the ground to even them out like playing cards is such uncannily smart behavior to see in something that isn't human."
Scientific Reports claims that a common raven's physical and social cognitive abilities are comparable to those of big apes. Researchers found that ravens equaled primates on almost every metric when they tested them on space, quantity, and causality.
A second user seemed to take a step back and cite the broader, documented picture of corvid behavior. "Crows are one of the smartest flying creatures I believe," they wrote, adding, "They recognize human faces for years, hold grudges, understand the concept of cause and effect, teach each other about dangers and can even make small tools!"
Studies on corvid cognition, according to ResearchGate, show that their abilities sometimes match or even exceed those of chimpanzees in specific tasks.
According to published studies, ravens exhibit future planning, coalition building, and tactical deception. One Reddit user offered a third viewpoint by mentioning their blue and gold macaw -- a non-corvid with similar problem-solving skills.
"Cunning would be a better word," the user wrote, describing macaw behaviors they could not explain without exceptional intelligence.
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Redditors Discuss Animal Intelligence
The macaw reference changed the focus from ravens to the more general issue of what constitutes true animal intelligence.
It is impossible to determine from the video whether the quick return to the employee was an expression of gratitude or another food check. However, Redditors chose gratitude and characterized the pause before leaving as a gesture of acknowledgment. Watching frame by frame, commenters called the bird's brief stop a deliberate recognition and not an accident.
Ravens have been documented practicing tactical deception, particularly when hiding food from competitors who might be watching. The FedEx warehouse bird showed neither deception nor coalition building, just clean optimization. Going viral on a platform full of humans, the bird offered no explanation and perhaps needed none.
