Did you know? Crows need just 0.235 seconds to make a decision

Next time someone calls you a "bird brain", you might want to say thanks. A new study in the journal Science found that crows make decisions in an average of 0.235 seconds, roughly twice as fast as humans and monkeys doing the same test.

And they're not just guessing. Most of those snap decisions are right.

How do you test a crow's decision speed?

The study comes from Philipp Schmidbauer and Professor Andreas Nieder at the Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tübingen in Germany. It was published on 22 October 2026 under the title Ultrarapid decision-making in an avian brain.

The test is basically a touchscreen game:

• The crow watches a screen full of small moving dots.
• It has to work out whether most of the dots are moving left or right.
• It answers by pecking a target on the left or right side of the screen.
• Right answers earn a mealworm. The most honest motivation there is.

Two carrion crows (Corvus corone) named Iggy and Lemmy took part. After thousands of trials, their average response time was about 235 milliseconds.

Fast, but are they accurate?

Speed means nothing if you keep getting it wrong, so the researchers checked accuracy too:

• The crows averaged about 74% accuracy, roughly on par with primates (humans and monkeys) in earlier studies.
• When the dot movement was clear, they got it right almost 100% of the time.
• Even when the motion was hard to see, they still beat random guessing.

In other words, the crows aren't fast because they're careless. They really do process information quickly.

The crow's brain "decides" in 0.07 seconds

This is the part that got scientists excited. The team recorded nerve activity in a region of the crow brain called the nidopallium caudolaterale, which is often compared to the human prefrontal cortex, the part we use for decision-making.

As early as 70 milliseconds after a crow saw the moving dots, signals from hundreds of neurons were already pointing to the side it would pick. The beak hadn't even moved, and the brain already had its answer.

Did you know? Professor Marc Schmidt of the University of Pennsylvania, who wasn't involved in the study, said the speed comparison made him exclaim "Holy cow!"

How can a small brain be faster?

Nobody knows for sure yet. Nieder himself calls it a wide-open research question. But scientists have a few ideas:

• Small brain, short wiring. Neurons sit closer together, so signals arrive sooner.
• Packed with neurons. Members of the crow family (corvids) have 2 to 3 times as many neurons as primates in the same volume of brain tissue.
• Running hot. Birds have higher, steadier body temperatures, which could speed up nerve signals.

One thing to keep in mind

The study used just two crows. Other scientists praised the results because both birds showed a consistent pattern. Still, Professor Aaron Blaisdell of UCLA wants to know whether this speed is unique to crows, or something all birds share.

So the crow you spot by the roadside might not beat you at a reaction game. But if it does, now you know why.

Which other "ordinary" animal do you think is secretly smarter than we give it credit for?