Massive birds with thick necks and recognizable shaggy throat feathers are ravens.

• Ravens have long bills and strong, large feet like other corvids. Typically, ravens are entirely black. Ravens resemble common crows the most, but they soar in flight more like hawks. Their thin wings and wedge-shaped tail are two additional characteristics that set them apart from crows.
• The most prevalent pigments in birds, melanins, are crucial to the coloration of feathers, skin, and eyes. They are primarily made up of eumelanin and phaeomelanin, which differ in color, chemical makeup, and pigment granule structure^[1] (Fox & Vevers, 1960).
• While phaeomelanin only occurs in feathers and determines colors ranging from deep reddish brown to pale buff, eumelanin produces black, grey, and brown feathers and the color of the eyes and skin.
• Only eumelanin is present in all Raven/Corvus species; for ease of use, it will be referred to as melanin^[2] (British Ornithologists Club Bulletin, 2014).

Ravens are highly intelligent creatures that can rip open objects with their beaks to help them find food and shelter.

Ravens frequently hunt in packs and have been observed to capture and kill prey twice their size. They will also conceal their food from other predators, including ravens. In fact, they frequently “pretend” to hide food when another raven is watching, only to move the food cache when nobody is looking!

There are many names for a group of ravens, such as conspiracy, storytelling, and unkindness.

• A raven will leave the unkindness to pair off once it has found its mate. Folklore holds that seeing a lone raven heralds good fortune.
• If a raven appears to you, it might be a sign that the solution you’re looking for is on the way.
• Ravens have been known to sense when people need guidance. While some view the sighting of ravens as a sign of death and bad luck, others see it as a chance for rebirth and a fresh start.

Ravens can learn to communicate better in captivity than parrots.

• They imitate other sounds, such as car engines, flushing toilets, and animal and bird calls.
• To draw wolves or foxes to carcasses they cannot open, ravens have been known to mimic those animals. For example, the leftovers from the wolf’s meal are given to the raven.

The fact that ravens possess “episodic memory“, a trait shared by humans and other primates, is arguably one of the most amazing and unsettling facts about ravens. This enables them to recall human faces and other details, particularly when connected to an emotion or event.