Yellowstone National Park, USA – A new study reveals that ravens don’t simply follow wolves to scavenger kills—they remember where wolves are most likely to make kills and fly long distances to reach them.

When wolf packs hunt, ravens are often first on the scene, ready to claim scraps. “They can fly six hours non-stop, straight to a kill site,” says Dr. Matthias Loretto, first author of the study published in Science.

Researchers tracked 69 ravens and 20 collared wolves over two-and-a-half years in Yellowstone, using GPS devices to record their movements. They found that ravens rarely followed wolves for long distances. Instead, the birds repeatedly returned to areas where kills were common, flying up to 155 kilometers a day along precise paths.

Ravens seem to learn and remember the “resource landscape,” choosing spots where wolf kills cluster, such as flat valley bottoms. “A single kill is unpredictable, but over time some parts of the landscape are more productive than others — and ravens appear to use that pattern to their advantage,” says Loretto.

While short-range cues like wolf howling may help locate nearby kills, memory drives their broader strategy. “Ravens are flexible in where they decide to feed. They don’t stay tied to a particular wolf pack,” says Prof. John M. Marzluff of the University of Washington.

The findings highlight the surprising intelligence of scavengers and how they exploit patterns in the environment to survive, showing that ravens are far more sophisticated hunters than previously thought.

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