Today's article is dedicated to a mythical bird that is mentioned in many legends and fairy tales of many nations around the world. In some of them it is a messenger of the afterlife, in others it is a symbol of wisdom and longevity.

I will tell you right away that a crow and a raven are not husband and wife, but two separate birds, which are similar, but still not the same! They differ in size, color and other factors, and most importantly the accent on different syllables!))) Just kidding, of course, the main difference is the impressive size of crows: their body length reaches 70 cm and wingspan of one and a half meters, which is commensurate with hawks and eagles.

It is believed that ravens live for 100, 200 and even 300 years! Is it really so? Indeed, in ancient times some peoples considered these birds immortal and their killing was forbidden under penalty of death! But those times have passed and since the time when they invented such a thing as statistics, it is already known that in fact, everything is much more prosaic!

Sadly, crows are quite mortal. Officially, the maximum age of crows in the wild is only 20 years. Which is quite a long time, considering unfavorable living conditions such as harsh climate, disease, predators and poor ecology!

But thanks to their intelligence and ability to copy human speech, ravens often end up in the care of humans. In this case, their life expectancy increases to 40-50 years on average. But there are cases when they have passed 70 years of age, which is quite a retirement age, even for our very developed, especially on TV, country!

It should be said that ravens are not the only long-livers. Everyone knows such long-livers as ARA and KAKADU parrots, which live up to 60 years in the wild and up to 100 years in the home.

But there are some lesser-known long-livers:

White crane - 40 years in the wild and 82 at the Wisconsin Zoo;

the golden eagle - up to 50 years in human care;

Goose - 40 years lived by one goose in America.

Albatross - A female dark-backed albatross, which scientists have named ‘Wisdom’, lives on Midway Atoll and is the longest-lived bird in the wild! She is now over 70 years old and on 1 February she became a mother for the 40th time!!!

As for ravens, their most popular community now lives in the famous English fortress Tower, where they settled in the 12th century. At that time, executions were still practiced in the Tower, which could not fail to attract the birds, who are scavengers. Later in the 17th century, King Charles II's astrologer predicted that Britain would fall if not a single raven was left in the Tower, so the king decided to be on the safe side and ordered the number of birds to be kept to at least 6! And in the 19th century, Queen Victoria decreed that the Tower's ravens be put on the public payroll!

Another interesting fact:

During the Second World War, the bombing raids had taken their toll on the birds and there was only one raven left in the Tower. It is rumored that when Winston Churchill was informed of this fact, he personally ordered the number of crows to be increased to six and Britain won!