Tool-using rookies; a squirrelous video; uproarious wordplay

Unlike their corvine cousins, rooks don't show off their tool-using ability in the wild, but that doesn't mean they're a simpler breed. Given appropriate conditions in the lab - and a "tasty morsel" like a waxworm to tempt them - rooks (Corvus frugilegus) can use various combinations of sticks and stones to dip their beaks in some treats. They can even modify a stick or a piece of wire to complete the task.

See the videos at BBC News.

"The interesting thing about the rooks is that they do not use tools in the wild," says the deliciously named Christopher Bird, the study's lead author.

"The upshot," says the Economist, "is that toolmaking, at least in crows, does not look like a specifically evolved ability but rather an extension of general intelligence. Perhaps wild rooks are not presented with a need to use tools, and so don’t bother."

Other non-primates - elephants, cetaceans, various birds and rodents - also use tools. There may be uncounted species among them like the rooks who just don't exhibit tool use in the wild, where it's unnecessary.

And here we have a delightful video of the lengths those rascally sciurids will go to for a treat or a candy bar - not so different, us and the animals, hmm?

"Squirrel a la Huckabee?" (Slate V)

Slate V's Samantha Henig must have picked up on my previous post, and in this video asks how to safely cook a squirrel, and if it can be done in a popcorn popper, like Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee claims to have done in college.

Economy, war, health care...squirrel attack!

Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press", asked Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Sunday, "Was it true...that he had fried squirrel in a popcorn popper in college?"

"Mr. Huckabee confirmed his prior squirrel consumption but appeared to back away from defending the flavor," says the Wall Street Journal. "'It's not the best thing in the world,' and doesn't really taste like chicken, he concluded."

Though the former governor of Arkansas' response lacked the bite most voters would like, still no other candidate has come out and taken a position on squirrels (of the rodent family Sciuridae) in America.

That very Sunday, before Huckabee made his bland statement on the issue, a squirrel entered a substation in Gentilly, Louisiana, tripping a circuit breaker and leaving 6,000 energy customers without power for nearly four hours.

Hardly a week before that a squirrel got into a transformer in Weston, Connecticut, causing an electrical fire and brief power outage.

In fact, squirrels frequently chew wires and meddle with transformers, causing power outages, fires, and even explosions. "New York officials report that squirrels cause power outages daily," according to one source. At least twice, the gray rodents have shut down the NASDAQ stock exchange.

"On average about twenty-five percent of all power outages nationwide...are inspired by suicidal squirrels," claims the web site "Daily Kos".

And voters needn't limit their concern to tree squirrels--burrowing ground squirrels can undermine the integrity of buildings and infrastructure. "A post-Katrina study," warns a California-based water supply and flood protection organization, "cited 'rodent burrows' as a pervasive problem with earthen levees in New Orleans."

OTHER PLACES TO WATCH OUT FOR SQUIRRELS

A baby grand piano.

My friend's pants in third grade.

Soup.

The cemetery.

England, where the destructive American gray squirrel, brought to the island in the 19th century, has turned out to be a viciously invasive species, routing the native red squirrel from its habitat and spreading a deadly pox among the survivors.