Crow

Etymology and terminology

Names for the bird in other languages include the German Krähe and the Latin corvus or cornix.^[8] The Latin generic name Corvus signifies raven.^[9][10] In French, the term corneille derives from the Vulgar Latin cornicula, a diminutive of cornix.^[11] In Slavic traditions, ancient languages designated the bird with onomatopoeic names like kruku, developing into modern forms such as the Serbian and Croatian vrana, while the Polish word is kruk.^[8] Hungarian varjú possesses Finno-Ugric sound-mimicking roots resembling the Mordvin vartsi and the Finnish varis, reflecting the cawing call of var-var.^[12] In Persian, the bird is known as kalāgh, and in Kurdish as qalarrash.^[13][14]

In Turkic tongues, the word for crow is derived from the Old Turkic karğa, meaning a black bird, contrasted with kuzğun for raven.^[8] Proto-Altaic forms include kari and kori, which relate to mythical avian beings in Proto-Manchu-Tungusic.^[8] Modern cognates include karga in Turkey, Kumyk, Tatar, and Uyghur; garga in Azerbaijani and Turkmen; harga in Khakas; and korak in Chuvash.^[8] Notably, the modern Turkish noun kargaşa, meaning chaos or discord, as well as the Old Turkic verb kargaşmak, meaning to dispute or brawl, originated from observing crows loudly quarreling over carrion.^[8]

In scientific and common nomenclature, the distinction between crow and raven does not reflect an absolute taxonomic divide but serves as a general categorization based on body size, with larger species usually designated ravens and smaller ones called crows.^[11][15] In Chinese tradition, birds of this group are characterized by large bills, sturdy feet, and dark coloration, with uniformly black specimens historically called wu and grey-mantled ones termed ya, together forming the compound wuya.^[16] Li Shizhen recorded several historical Chinese names in the Bencao Gangmu, such as yawo, laoya, chuvu, and dazuiwu.^[17] The standard collective noun for a congregation of crows in English is a murder.^[15]

Taxonomy and evolution

The genus Corvus was established by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 within the tenth edition of Systema Naturae.^[18] Crows constitute roughly one-third of all living species in the family Corvidae.^[4][19] Molecular clock assessments indicate that the genus Corvus originated during the Late Miocene. Phylogenetic evidence demonstrates that while the ancestral lineage of the family Corvidae arose in Australasia, the branch leading to predominantly black Corvus species dispersed into Asia.^[20] Members evolved and diversified extensively in central Asia before colonizing Europe, Africa, North America, and re-entering Australia in relatively recent evolutionary history, where five modern species and one subspecies formed.^[20][21]

In Japanese biological terminology, the designation karasu broadly refers to the family Corvidae, though strictly it designates the genus Corvus and related genera.^[1][22] Within Corvidae, genera sharing the vernacular label include Pyrrhocorax (choughs), Zavattariornis (Stresemann's bushcrow), Podoces (ground jays), Nucifraga (nutcrackers), Coloeus (jackdaws), and Corvus.^[23] Modern molecular phylogenies show that Nucifraga and Coloeus are closely related to Corvus, whereas Zavattariornis, Podoces, and Pyrrhocorax represent divergent lineages, with Pyrrhocorax diverging earliest from the corvid trunk.^[23]

The fossil record of Corvus is extensive and traces lineage development through the Neogene and Quaternary periods. Known fossil taxa include Corvus galushai from the Late Miocene of the United States, Corvus larteti from the Late Miocene of France and Central Europe, Corvus praecorax from the Early Pliocene of France, Corvus simionescui from the Early Pliocene of Romania, Corvus hungaricus from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of southern Europe, Corvus moravicus from the Plio-Pleistocene of Central Europe, and Corvus pliocaenus from European Plio-Pleistocene strata. Additional Pleistocene forms comprise Corvus antecorax, Corvus betfianus, Corvus fossilis from Germany, and Corvus neomexicanus from North America. Prehistoric Holocene island extinctions include Corvus antipodum and Corvus moriorum in New Zealand and the Chatham Islands, Corvus pumilis in Puerto Rico, Corvus impluviatus and Corvus viriosus in the Hawaiian Islands, and an undescribed Corvus species from New Ireland.

Species diversity

The genus Corvus encompasses dozens of living species adapted to diverse geographic regions.^[15] Living species include the American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), the fish crow (Corvus ossifragus), the Tamaulipas crow (Corvus imparatus), the Sinaloa crow (Corvus sinaloae), the Cuban crow (Corvus nasicus), the Cuban palm crow (Corvus minutus), the Hispaniolan palm crow (Corvus palmarum), the Jamaican crow (Corvus jamaicensis), and the white-necked crow (Corvus leucognaphalus). Other species include the Hawaiian crow (Corvus hawaiiensis), the Mariana crow (Corvus kubaryi), the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides), the Banggai crow (Corvus unicolor), and the Flores crow (Corvus florensis).

Other living species include the Torresian crow (Corvus orru), the little crow (Corvus bennetti), the grey crow (Corvus tristis), the brown-headed crow (Corvus fuscicapillus), the Bismarck crow (Corvus insularis), the Bougainville crow (Corvus meeki), the white-billed crow (Corvus woodfordi), the long-billed crow (Corvus validus), the violet crow (Corvus violaceus), the piping crow (Corvus typicus), and the slender-billed crow (Corvus enca). The genus also includes the large-billed crow (Corvus macrorhynchos), the Indian jungle crow (Corvus culminatus), the eastern jungle crow (Corvus levaillantii), the collared crow (Corvus torquatus), and the house crow (Corvus splendens).^[3][15] Other species of the genus include the pied crow (Corvus albus), the Cape crow (Corvus capensis), and the Somali crow (Corvus edithae).

In western Eurasia, the two most ubiquitous forms are the carrion crow (Corvus corone) and the hooded crow (Corvus cornix).^[24][25] The carrion crow features solid black plumage with a purplish gloss and occupies western Europe and parts of eastern Asia, whereas the hooded crow exhibits a contrasting grey body with black wings, tail, and head, inhabiting northern and eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.^[24][25] In regions where their breeding territories overlap, such as across the Czech Republic, extensive hybridization occurs, producing fertile offspring displaying diverse intermediate grey and black color gradations.^[25] In Georgia, the hooded crow is a resident breeder across the landscape, whereas the carrion crow occurs only as an occasional vagrant.^[24]

Physical characteristics

Crows are medium to large passerine birds ranging in overall body length from 34 to 70 centimeters, possessing robust bodies, stout bills, and powerful legs. Crows range in size from the relatively small, pigeon-sized jackdaws to the common raven of the Holarctic region and the thick-billed raven of the Ethiopian highlands.^[4][26] Their plumage is black, though some forms have a grey back.^[12][16]

Juvenile crows differ markedly from mature adults in physical appearance and coloration. Fledglings display duller, sootier plumage lacking the deep adult iridescence, accompanied by soft, flesh-toned tissue along the corners of the gape.^[27] The interior lining of a chick's mouth is bright red, and the eyes display a distinctive grayish-blue tone.^[27] As young birds mature over their first year, the gape tissue regresses, the eye pigment darkens to deep brown, and the palate lining turns black.^[27] The sexes are hard to tell apart, although in most species males are larger than females.^[28]

The sensory biology of crows is distinguished by advanced visual perception. Crows possess tetrachromatic vision, possessing retinal photoreceptors capable of processing red, green, and blue wavelengths as well as ultraviolet light. This expanded spectral sensitivity assists them in foraging, monitoring social cues, and detecting aerial predators. Crows also maintain sharp visual acuity that facilitates accurate recognition of individual human faces and subtle alterations in their surroundings.^[29][30][31]

Diet and foraging

Crows are opportunistic omnivores capable of consuming almost any edible substance they encounter.^[32] Their wild diet encompasses grains, seeds, wild fruits, berries, nuts, insects, and varied invertebrates.^[32] They also prey upon small vertebrates, including small rodents, frogs, lizards, snakes, crayfish, bird eggs, nestling chicks, and weakened or injured adult animals.^[32][33] Carrion constitutes a standard dietary component, and crows congregate at dead carcasses alongside other scavengers.^[32] In urban environments, human discard constitutes up to 65 percent of their total caloric intake, with wild insects and seeds comprising the remainder, and carrion dropping to roughly 1 percent.^[34]

Dietary preferences vary between sympatric species. In Japan, large-billed crows show a pronounced tendency toward carnivory and animal matter, whereas carrion crows lean more heavily toward vegetable foods and grain. Foraging behaviors include complex kleptoparasitism: in wild habitats, crows harass raptors by pulling their tail feathers until the predator drops its kill.^[35] In urban settings, they employ identical harassment techniques against domestic cats and dogs to steal pet food.^[36] In coastal habitats, crows forage along tidal mudflats, and carrion crows in Hiroshima Prefecture have been documented carrying oyster shells into the air to smash them on hard rocky surfaces below.

Food caching is a survival adaptation observed across many Corvus species.^[37][38] Surplus food acquired during abundant periods is transported to concealed caches in tree bark, dense vegetation, or subterranean excavations and covered with leaf litter, soil, or ballast stones.^[37][38] Unlike tree squirrels, which frequently fail to recover cached seeds, crows possess acute spatial memory and relocate their buried stores across seasons during harsh winter conditions and the breeding cycle.^[38] Crows also exhibit high standards of food cleanliness, frequently carrying soiled scraps, insects, and carrion to water puddles to wash them before consumption, and wiping their bills cleanly on perches after feeding.

Intelligence and cognition

Crows rank among the most cognitively sophisticated animals on Earth, displaying problem-solving abilities and encephalization quotients comparable to non-human primates and cetaceans.^[19][39][40] Their forebrains possess an expanded cerebrum, specifically featuring heavily developed associative areas known as the nidopallium and hyperpallium, which process planning, learning, and higher executive functions.^[41][42] Behavioral tests indicate that generalized problem-solving skills in crows equal those of a human child aged five to seven years.^[43] In self-recognition mirror trials, while Eurasian magpies recognize their own reflections, species of Corvus typically inspect the space behind the glass looking for another bird.^[44]

Tool manufacture and modification are highly developed in certain species. Wild New Caledonian crows craft hooked implements from twigs, leaf rachises, and vine stems to extract wood-boring larvae from tree cavities.^[6] In urban environments, carrion crows drop hard walnuts onto pedestrian crosswalks and road lanes, deliberately waiting for automobiles to crush the hard shells before retrieving the edible kernels.^[45]

Cognitive studies at Lund University indicate that corvids possess capacities for episodic memory and mental time travel, enabling them to envision future scenarios and plan ahead.^[38] Crows recognize and remember individual human faces across extensive temporal intervals: American crows have accurately identified specific threatening human faces for up to nine and a half years.^[31][46][47] Large-billed crows can distinguish photographic portraits of human males and females.^[48][49] In Japan, crows predating little tern colonies learned to observe birdwatchers using spotting scopes, correctly deducing that breeding tern chicks were located in the direction where human optical instruments pointed.^[50] When hand-reared from the nestling stage, crows can mimic human speech, dog barks, and mechanical sounds.^[51][52]

Corvids display elaborate vocal communication containing dozens of distinct vocalizations.^[53] Bioacoustic analysis directed by Naoki Tsukahara at SOKENDAI revealed that crows employ at least 41 discrete vocal calls, including a rhythmic ka-ka-ka call announcing discovered food to conspecifics, a rapid kak-kak-kak alarm call warning of nearby raptors, and an elongated qua-qua vocalization signaling safety upon returning to nocturnal roosts.^[53][54] Ravens and crows transmit discovered food locations across their social network at night roosts.^[55] Social transmission allows warnings regarding hostile humans or dangerous predators to spread across neighboring family clans and be passed down to subsequent generations.^[6][46] Crows also engage in complex social gatherings termed funerals, crowding around dead conspecifics while vocalizing intensely to analyze the cause of mortality and identify lurking predators.^[56]

Social structure and reproduction

Crows are more social than most animals and live in large family groups.^[57] Adult birds establish lifelong monogamous pair bonds, defending fixed nesting territories throughout the year.^[33][58][59] Non-breeding juveniles, subadults, and unattached adults form foraging flocks that congregate in large communal roosts during the non-breeding season and winter. Play behavior is widespread among both wild and captive birds, with individuals documented hanging upside down from power lines, sliding repeatedly down icy roofs and snowbanks, and dropping and catching objects mid-air.^[60][61]

The breeding cycle commences in late winter and early spring, starting between late February and early March in temperate latitudes.^[27] Nests are substantial, bowl-shaped structures constructed high in forest trees, cliff crevices, electrical poles, and highway signboards.^[27] The outer framework is woven from sturdy twigs at least pencil-thick, which urban birds frequently supplement with stolen wire clothes hangers and synthetic scrap.^[27][62] The deep inner cup is lined with soft insulating substances, including dried grass, sheep wool, feathers, cotton, and animal fur.^[27] In Tokyo parks, large-billed crows have been filmed landing directly on the backs of zoo bison to pluck winter hair for nest lining.^[62]

The female lays one egg a day, and the number of eggs varies by species.^[59] During incubation the female spends the most time on the nest and the male feeds her.^[59] Nestlings hatch in a helpless, altricial state and remain in the nest for 30 to 40 days, or up to six to ten weeks in some species, before fledging. In cooperative family groups, older siblings that have learned to feed themselves frequently provision smaller chicks in the nest.^[27] Crows achieve adult physical and neurological growth within their first year, but reach sexual maturity later in life, after which they disperse from their natal group to find a mate and establish a breeding territory.^[28]

During the nesting and fledgling period, breeding crows become fiercely territorial and mount aggressive defenses against perceived threats.^[63] The parents first sound alarm calls, followed by low-level swooping dives descending within one meter of the intruder's head from behind.^[63] Crows pursue retreating humans or predators over distances of several hundred meters.^[63] If swooping fails, crows escalate to physical strikes, kicking the intruder's head or pulling hair with their claws and bill; surveys of nesting crow attacks in Japan found that 17 percent resulted in physical scratches or cuts.^[63]

Ecological interactions and health

Crows eat mice and clear away dead snakes and lizards in the sand dunes, the same work that vultures do. By eating insects, venomous animals and animal carcasses, they help keep the environment in balance.. Crows eat the fruit of trees such as the sacred fig and the banyan, and the seeds pass out in their droppings and take root.. Conversely, they destroy and eat the eggs and newly hatched chicks of other birds, and have been called the foremost enemy of birds.^[33] Brood parasites routinely exploit their parental investment: the Asian koel consistently lays its eggs inside the nests of the house crow, leaving its chicks to be reared by foster crow parents.^[64]

Because adult crows are sizable and vigilant, they have few effective predators, though northern goshawks, large owls, foxes, and martial eagles occasionally take adult birds.^[65] Unattended eggs and nestlings are vulnerable to predation by arboreal snakes, such as the Japanese rat snake (Elaphe climacophora).^[65] In stressful environmental conditions or times of food scarcity, crows engage in cannibalism, consuming the eggs, chicks, or diseased corpses of conspecifics.^[65][66] When raptors enter their airspace, crows engage in persistent mobbing, dive-bombing and harassing the predatory bird until it vacates the hunting territory.^[67] Raptors that are mobbed hunt less successfully and move away, and it has been suggested that crows which show boldness by mobbing may rise in rank and find mates more easily.^[68] Species that mob predators are said to live longer than species that do not.^[68]

Corvids maintain mutualistic ecological relationships with mammalian apex predators. Crows and ravens maintain associations with grey wolf packs in Holarctic ecosystems, playing with young wolf pups, following moving packs, and vocalizing to alert wolves to the presence of large carcasses or competitors such as grizzly bears.^[69] In return, the birds scavenge scraps from the wolf kills.^[69] For somatic maintenance, crows practice anting: when afflicted by feather mites or microbial pathogens, birds seek out ant mounds, allowing the ants to crawl across their plumage and release formic acid, whose antiparasitic and antibacterial properties cleanse their feathers and skin.^[64]

Crows are highly vulnerable to West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne flavivirus that infects avian hosts, equines, and humans.^[70] Mosquitoes transmit the pathogen between wild birds, causing extensive viremia.^[70] During the 1999 New York outbreak, approximately 5,500 crows perished within four months across the metropolitan area.^[71] Controlled laboratory analyses established that West Nile virus infection produces a near 100 percent mortality rate in crows.^[71]

Human interactions and management

Crows have adapted effectively to urban landscapes, thriving in proximity to human settlements where anthropogenic waste provides a dependable food supply.^[32] However, crows also cause problems for people, with garbage in cities and with their nests on utility poles..^[72] They raid garbage collection points to find food.. Crows now also nest on utility poles and signboards, using wire, plastic and other artificial materials, and nests built with wire on utility poles and transmission towers often cause short circuits.. Tokyo authorities responded with extensive mitigation programs, installing secure protective netting over municipal refuse depots, setting baited traps, and systematically removing problem nests.^[72] These interventions, coupled with the return of raptors to urban green belts, reduced Tokyo's crow population significantly from its historical peak around the year 2000.^[72]

In China, during a campaign under Mao Zedong, the government and the public together killed crows, sparrows and rats on a large scale, believing that these animals caused filth, damaged crops and spread disease.. The campaign brought more harm than benefit: the harvests that were expected to improve after it turned out worse.. Malaysia had no crows until early in the twentieth century, when sailors brought some from Sri Lanka to Carey Island, near Kuala Lumpur, from where they spread across Kuala Lumpur and the nearby towns. On Penang Island the crow population, about 2,000 in 1973, grew four to five times within twelve years.. Municipalities instituted bounty campaigns, paying approximately 1.50 dollars per crow tail.^[73] Over ten thousand birds were shot or trapped in Kuala Lumpur and buried in mass pits.^[73] Professor J. K. Charles of Universiti Sains Malaysia, who studied crows for many years, said that shooting crows brought little benefit and that a better approach was for people to keep areas clean and put food waste where municipal vehicles could collect it.

In Japan, the Wildlife Protection Act, as a rule, forbids capturing the rook, carrion crow and large-billed crow, except by legal methods in hunting areas during the hunting season.. Conversely, several island endemic taxa face extinction risks and receive comprehensive legal protection. The Hawaiian crow, known locally as the alala, represents the most critically endangered corvid worldwide.^[74] The species became extinct in the wild in 2002, when the last two known wild individuals were last seen.^[75][76] The species survives exclusively in captive breeding facilities, and most reintroduction attempts made since 1993 have failed.^[77]

Culinary use and traditional medicine

Many regions avoid eating crow meat for religious or cultural reasons, either because the bird is held sacred or because it is regarded with aversion, and wild crows may carry harmful substances from the refuse and carcasses they eat.^[78] In the English language, this distaste is enshrined in the idiom eating crow, denoting the humiliating experience of acknowledging a mistake.^[78][79] Nevertheless, crow meat has been exploited as an emergency subsistence food during severe economic hardship and famine.^[78] During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Dr. T. W. Stallings, a former city health superintendent in Tulsa, Oklahoma, organized a campaign promoting crow meat cuisine to simultaneously furnish low-cost protein and eradicate agricultural pests, popularizing crow dinners across surrounding states into the 1940s.^[80] In Lithuania, traditional crow hunting persisted in the village of Kalnaberžė, where local estates formerly harvested and salted crows; this culinary practice was revived during the 2000s through regional food festivals.^[81] In Hungary, wild crow meat historically provided the base for rich game broths, particularly among the Somogy aristocracy, whose Bata-style soup originally featured crow meat.^[82]

Academic and commercial culinary research into crow meat has emerged in modern Japan. In 2003, Professor Mitsuo Sekikawa and researchers at Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine investigated crow meat as an unexploited protein resource.^[83] Their laboratory evaluations revealed that crow breast muscle contains high concentrations of myoglobin, conferring a deep red color reminiscent of whale meat.^[84] The muscle tissue is lean, high in protein, lower in calories than poultry, and possesses elevated iron concentrations relative to chicken.^[84][85] Tests confirmed that wild crow meat did not harbor toxic accumulations of heavy metals or pesticide residues, and microbial screenings showed it to be microbiologically safe when properly cooked.^[84] Former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara once proposed developing commercial crow meat pies as a culinary specialty for Tokyo.^[86][87] French culinary chef Norihiko Fujiki of the Japan Gibier Promotion Association featured mountain-harvested carrion crows that fed exclusively on wild forest seeds in French game dishes.^[84][88] In 2017, ornithologist Naoki Tsukahara published a culinary guidebook titled Truly Delicious Crow Cuisine Book, detailing dressing techniques and cooked recipes.^[85][89][90]

A severe public health controversy emerged in Japan in March 2023 following the publication of a Tokyo Shimbun newspaper column detailing a gathering of crow cuisine enthusiasts in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture, where diners ate raw crow meat sashimi.^[91][92] The columnist praised the event as a local culinary heritage, prompting medical specialists and scientific journalists to denounce raw wild game consumption due to severe risks of viral hepatitis, bacterial food poisoning, and avian influenza.^[93][94] The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare issued public warnings emphasizing that raw gibier is dangerous and urging that wild game meat be cooked thoroughly.^[93][94][95] Local Ibaraki sanitation officials stated they had no institutional record of raw crow consumption as a recognized historical tradition, although House of Councillors member Ryosuke Kozuki had regularly attended the club's gatherings.^[92][93][96]

The plectra on harpsichord jacks were originally made from bird feathers, and feathers dropped by a healthy crow after it flew off, soaked in olive oil, are considered the best. In medicine, the crow is classed as hot and dry in the second degree.. Historical pharmacopeias prescribed its meat to enhance semen viscosity, increase sexual potency, and alleviate clinical conditions including dropsy, jaundice, meningitis, melancholia, and facial paralysis.^[97] Crow gallbladder mixed with honey was applied topically to treat corneal opacities, cataracts, and visual impairment, while crow blood was utilized as a traditional remedy for vitiligo, leprosy, and alopecia.^[97]

Mythology and cultural beliefs

Crows occupy a dual cultural role across world folklore, functioning simultaneously as ominous harbingers of death and venerated messengers of the sun and celestial deities.^[98] Because they eat carrion and have black feathers, they have been linked with death, and many stories show them as the familiars or incarnations of demons and witches, as symbols of evil and bad luck.. In Celtic mythology, war goddesses including the Morrígan, Macha, and Badb appeared over bloody battlefields in the form of hooded crows or ravens, symbolizing carnage and victory.^[99] In Norse mythology, the supreme deity Odin was accompanied by two ravens, Huginn and Munin, representing thought and memory, who ranged across the earth daily to gather intelligence.^[98] In Britain, King Arthur is said to have been turned into a raven by magic, so harming a raven is called treason against him and the royal family and is thought to bring bad luck. At the Tower of London, the ravens that bred in large numbers at the time of the Great Fire of London were protected by the rulers, and the ravens have stayed closely linked with the Tower ever since..

In Classical Mediterranean mythology, crows and ravens were consecrated to Apollo, the god of prophecy and light.^[100] Classical myths recount that the crow was originally an immaculate white bird blessed with a melodious singing voice and human speech.^[100] In Ovid's narrative, the crow observed Apollo's mortal lover Coronis consorting with Ischys and flew to notify the deity.^[100] In a jealous fury, Apollo shot Coronis with his bow; repenting his impetuous act as she lay dying with his unborn child, Apollo directed his wrath at the informant crow, scorching its feathers black, banishing it from heaven, and reducing its melodious voice to a harsh caw.^[100] In another story, Apollo sent the crow to fetch water, but it forgot its task and ate figs instead, arriving late with a snake in its beak and lying that the snake had delayed it.. Apollo saw through the lie, threw the snake into the air, set the crow on its back with the cup of water, ordered Hydra not to let the bird drink, and forbade the crow to sing, so that from then on it could only caw. The crow was placed in the sky as the constellation Corvus, and the constellation Crater, the cup, lies just out of reach of its beak..

Across East Asian civilization, the crow represents a primary solar archetype.^[98][101] In Chinese cosmology, a three-legged sun crow known as the Sanzuwu or Jinwu dwells within the sun, with its three limbs reflecting yang or odd numerical energy.^[98][101] Solar blackspots observed through dust storms are hypothesized to have inspired this mythical imagery.^[101] In imperial China, the Qing dynasty revered the crow as a sacred protector because legend held that a flock of crows had concealed the founder Nurhaci from his pursuers.^[101][102] In classical Chinese ethics, crows exemplify filial piety, encapsulated in the idiom wuniao fanpu, denoting the young crow feeding its aged parents in return for its upbringing, earning the bird the title jichō, meaning benevolent bird.^[103][104] In Japanese mythology, during Emperor Jimmu's eastern expedition, the three-legged crow Yatagarasu carried a torch and guided Jimmu, who had landed at Kumano, toward the province of Yamato.. The sacred talismans of the Kumano shrines, known as Kumano Goōfu, are illustrated with stylized crows, and oaths sworn upon them carried the dread belief that breaking the pledge would cause three crows to die in Kumano and bring down divine retribution upon the perjurer.^[105][106]

In the Book of Genesis, after the great flood, the raven was the first animal sent out from the ship as a scout, and a dove was sent out after it.. In the First Book of Kings, the prophet Elijah, while hiding from King Ahab, was fed by ravens, sent by the Lord, that brought him bread and meat.. Among the Tlingit and related peoples, including the Haida, several creation stories involve Raven: in one, Raven made the forest and, when a cold wave came, asked an eagle to fly to the sun and bring back a piece of it, and the eagle brought back fire; in others, Raven lured people out of the darkness of a clam shell, or stole the stars, moon and sun from the house in the sky and released them to people.. In native Hawaiian religion, the endemic Hawaiian crow, or alala, was venerated as a personal ancestral family god known as an aumakua, serving as a psychopomp that escorted departed human spirits to their resting place on the coastal cliffs of Ka Lae.^[107][108]

In Hindu tradition, the crow serves as the vahana or mount of Shani, the planetary deity of justice and retribution.^[64] In Hindu custom, food is given to crows on a banana leaf on the thirteenth day after a death and at every shraddha, and a morsel of the daily meal is also set aside for crows; this is called kakabali.. Conversely, in the folklore of the Sindh and Punjab, the crow is celebrated as a benevolent messenger of love.^[109] The arrival and sweet vocalization of a crow upon a household roof, termed Kaan'u Lanwan, is welcomed as a joyful omen announcing the impending visit of beloved guests, celebrated in the Sufi poetry of the region.^[109]

Omens and divination

Crows are described as sensitive birds that react to changes in their surroundings, such as the amount of moisture in the air, and their calls and behavior have been read as portents.^[110] In the Thar Desert of Sindh, crows become agitated when monsoon atmospheric moisture drops, cawing at night due to disrupted reproductive cycles; nomadic herders recognize these nocturnal calls as a direct warning of drought.^[110] In rural Japan, popular folk beliefs maintained that discordant cawing foretold an imminent neighborhood death, that evening cawing presaged accidental fires, and that leaving the final unpicked persimmon on an autumn branch ensured that crows would guide the vegetative spirit back to the orchard the following spring.^[111]

In Sri Lankan folk belief, the behavioral omens of the crow are codified based on compass direction and tonal quality. A harsh caw from the north portends occupational failure or bereavement, whereas a melodious call from the north indicates financial profit. Calls from the south announce meetings with dignitaries; sweet calls from the west bring fortune; and harsh caws from the northeast signify illness. A crow scratching the earth outside a home's front threshold while calling raucously foretells sorrowful bereavement. A crow perching directly upon a person's head at noon, or swooping closely parallel to their path, is considered a dire sign of potential mortality. Even crow droppings are parsed for divination: white droppings on the forehead or back portend wealth and happiness, whereas black droppings falling upon the head or hands portend illness or disaster.

In Burmese lore, the omens of a calling crow, known as Kyee Tha Nimeik, are read from a table that sets the eight compass directions and the point directly overhead against five times of day, from 6 in the morning to sunset.. Between 6:00 and 9:00 AM, a crow cawing in the east signifies fulfilled wishes, in the southeast indicates meeting enemies, in the south brings visiting friends, in the southwest brings gain, in the west signals strong winds, and at the zenith portends encountering ghosts. Between noon and 3:00 PM, a call from the east promises wealth, from the southeast warns of war, from the south foretells a storm, from the southwest indicates approaching enemies, and from the northeast warns of fire. At sunset, a call from the south warns of oncoming sickness, while a call from the zenith signifies answered prayers.

Art, literature, and aviation

In the Buddhist Jataka tales, the Uluka Jataka tells how, at the beginning of the world, the birds held an assembly to elect a king. The assembly agreed to make the owl king, but when objections were called for the third time, a crow objected that the owl looked frightening even before it grew angry and would be worse when angry, so the owl did not become king, and from then on crows and owls were eternal enemies. Aesop's fables include The Crow and the Pitcher, told as an example of the bird's intelligence, in which a crow drops stones into a vessel to raise the water level and reach food floating inside. Edgar Allan Poe's narrative poem The Raven tells of a crow that flies into the room of a man who has lost the woman he loved and repeats the cry Nevermore. In Franz Schubert's song cycle Winterreise, set to texts by Wilhelm Müller, the fifteenth song, Die Krähe, sings of an ominous bird flying over the protagonist's head.

In Japanese poetry and literature, the crow is celebrated across classical and modern compositions.^[112] In the ancient Manyoshu anthology, multiple poems evoke the crow's dawn and evening calls.^[112] In twentieth-century children's literature, popular songs such as Yūyake Koyake and Ujō Noguchi's Nanatsu no Ko affectionately depict parent crows returning to mountain nests at dusk to feed their young.^[112] American author Philip Roth devoted seven consecutive pages to crows in his novel La Tache, while John Crowley's speculative novel Kra centers on Dar Duchesne, an immortal crow who chronicles the interwoven histories of corvids and humanity.^[113]

Chūhachi Ninomiya, who took the idea for a flying machine from watching crows glide with their wings spread, made the first successful flight of a rubber-powered model aircraft named Karasu-gō (The Crow Model) in 1891. The United States Air Force EF-111 electronic warfare aircraft is nicknamed the Raven, and StarFlyer's Airbus A320 is sometimes called a crow because almost the whole aircraft is black.

Non-avian organisms named crow

In Japanese, the word karasu appears in the names of several animals and plants that are not birds. Animals with the name include the dragonfly karasuyanma and the swallowtail butterfly karasuageha. They also include the shellfish karasugai and a pufferfish of the genus Takifugu called karasu or karasufugu. Plants with the name include karasuuri, a perennial of the gourd family, with the related ōkarasuuri and kekarasuuri; karasuōgi, another name for the hiōgi of the iris family, whose lacquer-black fruit is called ubatama or nubatama; karasuzanshō, a deciduous tree of the citrus family; karasunoendō, an overwintering herb of the pea family; karasunogoma, an annual of the linden family; and karasubishaku, a perennial of the arum family.

References

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