Crows use traffic to crack hard nuts — and wait for the light to turn red before collecting them
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In Tokyo and other cities, carrion crows have been observed carrying hard walnuts to pedestrian crossings, placing them in front of stopped cars at red lights, watching the cars crack the nuts when the light turns green, then waiting for the pedestrian signal to safely collect the food. This behaviour — tool use using vehicles as implements — emerged independently in multiple cities across Japan, the Netherlands, and North America. Crows teach this technique to offspring, creating a cultural tradition that spreads through crow communities.
Using a car as a nutcracker requires understanding: that cars are heavy, that stopped cars will move, that traffic lights control car movement, and that pedestrian signals allow safe retrieval. This is multi-step causal reasoning about a human-made system the crow was not evolved to understand.
The Science Behind It
In Tokyo and other cities, carrion crows have been observed carrying hard walnuts to pedestrian crossings, placing them in front of stopped cars at red lights, watching the cars crack the nuts when the light turns green, then waiting for the pedestrian signal to safely collect the food. This behaviour — tool use using vehicles as implements — emerged independently in multiple cities across Japan, the Netherlands, and North America. Crows teach this technique to offspring, creating a cultural tradition that spreads through crow communities.
Why Your Brain Finds This Hard to Believe
OddlyHuman Editorial
VerifiedWritten and fact-checked by the OddlyHuman Behavioral Science Team. We verify all psychological, sociological, and historical claims against peer-reviewed journals, primary sources, and established encyclopedias to bring you accurate insights.
Read our Editorial Guidelines →“Crows in Japan place hard nuts in front of cars at red lights, wait for the light to turn green and the car to crack the nut, then collect the food during the pedestrian signal. This behaviour spreads culturally. 🐦⬛🚗 #OddlyHuman”