Just in case you don’t already have a fear of birds, you might just develop one. Scientists have found that if you wrong crows, not only do they never forget it–or you–they also tell all their friends about you, too.
According to a new study, scientists have found that once even a single crow sees you as threatening, your face is etched in the crow’s memory indefinitely. And not to mention, crow gossip spreads fast.
Scientists wearing masks bothered (humanely, of course!) a select group of crows in an experiment, and then wore the same masks around the crows at a later date. Sure enough, the crows reacted strongly to the people in the masks, but to no one else. Also surprising was the fact that MORE crows had joined the original group, ganging up on the “bad” people in masks.
“Crows remember the faces of threatening humans and often react by scolding and bringing in others to mob the perceived miscreant, according to a new study published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Since the mob members also then indirectly learn about the threatening person, the findings demonstrate how just a single crow’s bad experience with a particular human can spread information about this individual throughout entire crow communities,” according to an article from news.discovery.com.
“Given that crows have impressive memories, people who ruffle the feathers of these birds could experience years of retribution.” Yikes!
