RAVENS AND COYOTES

Ravens can use observational learning to exploit the caches of other animal species, such as coyotes. Here's a great account of such behavior. The actors in this scenario are two coyotes that have been eating a deer; they are refered to as the "lame one" and the "dark one":

"The lame member of the group presently started up the slope carrying the front leg and shoulder bone of a fawn deer with most of the hide attached...[he] moved up into a small grove of Douglas firs. Six or seven ravens followed him as he went, circling a few feet above. In a few minutes the lame coyote emerged from the grove where he had cached the carrion. He looked back up the hill where some ravens were lighting in the trees, apparently having some misgivings about the security of his cache...The dark coyote disappeared in the grove, but later crossed an opening higher up the slope, still carrying what remained of the deer quarter. He dropped his load on the snow and stood looking alternately at his burden and at the circling ravens which had been following closely. He was not so naive about making his cache as was the lame one, who did not seem to realize that potentially all the ravens in the region knew the location of his store. The dark one seemed much dismayed. He probed his nose into the snow, picked up the bones, looked up at the ravens, and walked into another grove. The ravens followed, perching on the trees along his route. The coyote moved a long way up the slope to still another grove where he again stood watching the ravens, seeming completely perplexed."

(Adolph Murie, Ecology of the Coyote of the Yellowstone, US Government Printing Office, 1940, public domain, pp 34-35)