It is highly difficult to pinpoint what is going through an animal's mind when it appears to solve a problem by 'insight'. Here, we searched for an information processing error during the emergence of seemingly insightful stone dropping in New Caledonian crows. We presented these birds with the platform apparatus, where a heavy object needs to be dropped down a tube and onto a platform in order...

The study of external morphology of the New Caledonian leaf beetle Dematochroma foaensis Jolivet, Verma & Mille (Chrysomelidae, Eumolpinae, Colaspoidini) substantiates its new combination into the genus Rhyparida Baly (Chrysomelidae, Eumolpinae, Nodinini). The species is redescribed here to highlight characters important for suprageneric diagnosis. This is the second species of Nodinini found i...

Program Committee K. Al-Begain, Univ. of Glamorgan (UK) A. Al-Dubai, Univ. of Glasgow (UK) H.R. Arabnia, Univ. of Georgia (USA) I. Awan, Univ. of Bradford (UK) J. Bahi, IUT de Belfort-Montbeiard (France) A. Boukerche, University of Ottawa (Canada) K. Djemame, Univ. of Leeds (UK) S. Jarvis, Univ. of Warwick (UK) H. Karatza, Univ. of Thessaloniki (Greece) P. King, Heriot-Watt Univ. (UK) H. Larija...

New and published reports of zoogonid digeneans from New Caledonian waters are recorded, including a description of Overstreetia cribbi n. sp. from Atherinomorus lacunosus. This species differs from its congeners in the detail of its circum-oral spination and some metrical features. Other new records are of: Diphterostomum plectorhynchi Machida, Kamegai & Kuramochi, 2006 in Diagramma pictum; Pa...

Humans and chimpanzees both exhibit context-dependent tool use. That is, both species choose to use tools when food is within reach, but the context is potentially hazardous. Here, we show that New Caledonian crows used tools more frequently when food was positioned next to a novel model snake than when food was positioned next to a novel teddy bear or a familiar food bowl. However, the crows s...

Both single and multigrain U-Pb zircon thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) as well as sensitive high resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP ll) dating of two suites of Adirondack granites have yielded ages constraining the principal tectonomagmatic events of the Ottawan Orogeny to the interval ca 1090–1035 Ma. The earliest of these consists of mildly A-type hornblende granites of the Hawkeye...

16 New Caledonian crows make and use tools and tool types vary over geographic landscapes. Social 17 learning may explain the variation in tool design, but it is unknown to what degree social learning 18 accounts for the maintenance of these designs. Indeed, little is known about the mechanisms these 19 crows use to obtain information from others, despite the question’s importance in understand...