Crow vs Raven

Diffen › Science › Biology › Zoology › Animals

While crows and ravens may look similar and are both highly intelligent birds, they are very different in their behavior, habitat and even have physical characteristics that clearly distinguish them from one another.

Comparison chart

Crow versus Raven comparison chart
	Crow	Raven
Scientific name	Corvus brachyrhynchos (American Crow)	Corvus corax (Common Raven)
Family	Corvidae	Corvidae
Size	Smaller; about the size of a pigeon; 17 inches long (approx.); weight around 20 oz	Larger; almost the size of a Red-tailed Hawk; 24–27 inches long; weight around 40 oz
Wings	Blunt and splayed; wingspan 32–40 inches	Pointed wings; wingspan 46–54 inches
Tail	Fan-shaped	Wedge-shaped
Bill	Smaller and flat. No tuft of hair atop the bill.	Bigger, more powerful and curved. Has a tuft of bristly hair atop the bill.
Feathers	Less shiny; may have lighter markings	Glossy with a wet sheen
Iridescence	Purple and green-tinted wings in sunlight	Blue or purple sheen in sunlight
Flight pattern	Continuous flapping; rarely soars	Soars and glides on updrafts like a raptor; alternates flapping with soaring
Vocalization	Caw-caw; nasal, high-pitched call	Deep gronk-gronk or croooaaak; low and hoarse; capable of mimicry
Social structure	Highly social; gathers in large flocks called murders; roosts communally	Usually found alone or in pairs; occasionally in small groups; less gregarious
Habitat	Adaptable; common in urban and suburban landscapes, farmland, and open woods	Prefers wilderness: forests, mountains, coastal cliffs, tundra, and deserts
Geographic range	Widespread across North America, including cities and towns	Northern and western North America, Europe, Asia; avoids dense urban areas
Diet	Omnivore; insects, seeds, fruit, carrion, human food scraps, eggs, small animals	Omnivore/scavenger; large carrion, small mammals, eggs, insects, grain; follows large predators
Adaptive skills	Thrives near human populations; bold and audacious; uses tools; caches food	Cautious around humans; highly intelligent; uses tools and problem-solving; caches food
Life span (wild)	7–8 years	10–15 years
Life span (captivity)	Up to 20 years	Up to 40+ years

Physical Appearance

Ravens are larger than crows. So they are longer, weigh more and have greater wingspan. When in flight their necks appear longer than that of a crow. The bill of a raven is also larger. Crows tend to fluff their feathers into a mane and when a raven fluffs up its breast it looks ragged.

The tails are also prominently different and this can be seen clearly when these birds are flying. Ravens have pointed wings and wedge-shaped tails but crows have blunt and splayed wings and fan-shaped tails.

Here's a great video about the differences between ravens and crows and how to tell them apart:

Call of a Raven vs a Crow

Crows generally make the ‘Kaw’ sound in discrete units. A loud Kaw followed by a series of short Kaws. It is high pitched and nasal; crows are louder and have a harsher sound. A raven has deeper and less piercing sound. Their calls may sound like "croooaaak", "gronk- gronk", "tok", and "wonk-wonk."

Listen to these audio recordings:

Intelligence

According to Louis Lefebvre's book A Bird's IQ,

In descending order, the corvids with the most recorded innovations are the Eurasian carrion crow (Corvus corone), the common raven (Corvus corax), the Eurasian magpie (Pica pica), the house crow (Corvus splendens), and the American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos).

Crows are very intelligent and are known to devise ingenious ways of getting food and surviving in urbanized environments. In a study published in July 2014, researchers found that for certain cause-and-effect water displacement tasks (like The Crow and the Pitcher story in Aesop's Fables), crows can perform as well as 7- to 10-year-old humans. In fact, crows can form special relationships with humans who feed them consistently. As an example, crows have been known to bring little trinkets as gifts for this family in Seattle.

The video below is part of a BBC Earth documentary series and cites several examples where crows have demonstrated intelligence, tool-making ability, logical thought and learning:

Crows also have the ability to recognize and remember people by their faces.^[1] The NatGeo documentary A Murder of Crows (YouTube) is a great film for those interested in learning more about this extraordinary bird.

Tool Use

There are at least two known species of crows that use tools: the New Caledonian crow and the Hawaiian crow.

New Caledonian crows are even known to care for their tools and make new tools by bending straight pieces of garden wire into hooked foraging tools.

In a recent experiment, 93% of adult Hawaiian crows in captivity were able to find and use a stick to scrape meat out of logs with tiny holes. They had never done this before and it was a novel situation that they adapted to, using sticks as tools.

Diet

Ravens thrive on small invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, birds, cattle/sheep carrion, human garbage. Crows prefer birds, fruits, nuts, mollusks, earthworms, seeds, frogs, eggs, nestlings, mice and carrion.

Ravens and Crows in Mythology

A totem pole in Anchorage, Alaska, showing a raven stealing the moon and stars

Crows are associated with war and death in Irish mythology. In Cornish folklore crows are associated with the "otherworld" and so must be treated with respect. In Australian Aboriginal mythology, the crow is an ancestral being. In Buddhism the protector of the Dharma is represented by a crow in one of his physical/earthly forms.

The raven is revered as god by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest in North America and in northeast Asia. Several totem poles erected by native Americans in Washington, Alaska and Oregon depict ravens and the stories they feature in. In the Old Testament of the Bible there are several references to common Ravens. In the British Isles, ravens were symbolic to the Celts. In Irish mythology, the goddess Morrígan alighted on the hero Cú Chulainn's shoulder in the form of a raven after his death.