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Comment by Markoff | Hacker News Reader

> Crows reach fabulous levels of (animal) intelligence with a brain that is a fraction of the size of the brain of great apes.

Crows have a higher raw brain-to-body mass ratio (about 2.7% for ravens) compared to adult humans (about 1.9%), so not exactly surprising they are smart.

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While interesting, are the brain cells smaller, scaled down with body size? If not, it's not entirely indicative of an increased brain size compared to humans.

my point was their brain is not really a fraction of size when you compare it to their body mass, and anyway bigger brain doesn't really mean smarter animal necessarily, elephants are not that smart, so it's not really about size whether scaled or not

Why is the ratio important? Wouldn’t it be what the brain is capable of doing, determined by “wrinkles”? (Apparently the true indicator of intelligence, at least for humans). I’d imagine the bigger the brain in absolute terms, the more wrinkles, but who knows.

It is indeed determined by wrinkles, so listen to your parents, they have more of them. (Sorry, I'm sorry, please forgive)

Most of the brain is not doing intelligence, it is doing nerves and muscle control. Larger bodies require larger brains because otherwise they wouldn't be able to control all the muscles needed to move.

What an insult to elephants! They won't forget that for a long time.

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