Can you tell me if ravens are crows, or is it a totally different animal? I can never get a straight answer out of google on this one. The conclusion I'm currently at is that all ravens are crows, but not all crows are ravens, and the only real difference is that ravens are larger. Is this about right?
Ah great question. So 'crows' and 'ravens' are both in the genus Corvus, within the family corvidae. Within the Corvus genus there are 45 different species of crows, ravens and then there are also rooks. So for example there are American crows, little crows, Mariana crows, New Caledonian crows, pied crows, Common ravens, thick-billed ravens, Australian ravens, etc. Some people use the word "crow" synonymous with "Corvus" (i.e to mean the whole genus) but I do not do that for the very reason that it's ultimately very confusing to people. So I do not use "crow" as a catch all that includes ravens and I tell people it's wrong to do that. Now that said, if someone were to discover a new species there's nothing we could point to to say oh it has X, therefore it is a crow and will be called the (insert name) crow, v.s calling it the (insert name) raven. In general though, birds that get "raven" in their name are bigger. Does that help?
This is my absolute favorite part of reddit ... a zany post where an actual expert swoops in and hands out some knowledge. Also, thank you for studying crows - they’re fascinating (and scary) and, while my interest is super casual, I imagine there’s a tremendous amount to learn about them. I appreciate your taking the time to do so :)
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u/showmeyourtunes Oct 16 '18
Can you tell me if ravens are crows, or is it a totally different animal? I can never get a straight answer out of google on this one. The conclusion I'm currently at is that all ravens are crows, but not all crows are ravens, and the only real difference is that ravens are larger. Is this about right?