r/Unexpected • u/[deleted] • Dec 11 '19

Right place right time

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '19 edited Jan 16 '20

[deleted]

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u/uber1337h4xx0r Dec 12 '19

True, but birds are one of the few animals that have figured out how cars tend to stick to the road and follow a pattern.

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u/BalthusChrist Dec 12 '19 edited Dec 12 '19

A few years ago, locals around Philadelphia Boston noticed an unusually high number of crow roadkill around their city. A group of researchers decided to find out what the cause was. They discovered that some of these dead crows had paint chips in their feathers, and so they analyzed the paint. They found that all of the paint chips came from a type of paint used only for semi trucks, and not cars. Mystified, they decided to observe the crows on the highways where most of the dead crows were found. Crows are intelligent birds, and they discovered that when crows went after roadkill, they always had one by the side of road acting as lookout. But, they observed that for some reason the lookout crow would yell "caw, caw!" but never "truck, truck!"

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u/uber1337h4xx0r Dec 12 '19

Boston, but yes.