---
title: "Common raven · Animals and other organisms · Entities · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities/raven
description: "Over two billion neurons, densely packed. Ravens remember individual competitors."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

[Entities](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities) › Animals and other organisms › Birds

# Common raven

Corvus corax

Over two billion neurons, densely packed. Ravens remember individual competitors.

Neurons

2.17 billion measured  · whole brain (isotropic fractionator) 

Olkowicz S et al. (2016). Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain. PNAS 113:7255-7260\. doi:10.1073/pnas.1517131113.

In the cerebral cortex (or bird pallium)

1.2 billion (pallium)

Olkowicz S et al. (2016). Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain. PNAS 113:7255-7260\. doi:10.1073/pnas.1517131113.

## Evidence

* Ravens judge competitors based on what happened in earlier play-caching.  
Bugnyar T, Schwab C, Schloegl C, Kotrschal K, Heinrich B (2007) Ravens judge competitors through experience with play caching. Curr Biol 17(20):1804-1808\. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.09.048.

The [New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness](https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/nydeclaration/declaration) (2024) finds strong scientific support for conscious experience in mammals and birds.

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