The Difference Between Crows and Ravens

A biologist was asked to finally determine whether crows and ravens were, in fact, really two different subspecies of birds, which had been a matter of some conjecture for quite some time.

Given only a cursory glance, these birds appear to be virtually identical. The biologist spent considerable time watching the birds in their habitat and logging hours of observations. Their beaks were the same, their feet and their bodies showed no variable difference. But, at last, a breakthrough. The long feathers at the tip of a birds’ wings, which are called the pinion feathers (or pinions), provided the conclusion that ravens and crows do, in fact, have one crucial difference. A crow has five pinions, and a pinion has only four.

So therefore, ergo, ipso facto, the difference between crows and ravens is a matter of a pinion.