Today's New York Times science section has an article titled, "Second
Greatest Toolmaker? A Title Crows Can Crow About." The article reports
on a paper published in the January 18th issue of _Nature_ by Dr. Gavin
R. Hunt on field observations of a species of crow -- Corvus moneduloides
-- found inthe New Caledonia island group.

Dr. Hunt reported observing that "crow tool manufacture had three
features new to tool use in free-living nonhumans, and that only appeared
in early human tool-using cultures after the Lower Paleolithic: a high
degree of standardization, distinctly discrete tool types with definite
imposition of form in tool shaping, and the use of hooks."

dale goble
moscow