Crows famous for their tool-wielding show a tendency to be left- or right-beaked that mirrors handedness in humans, scientists have found.

Individual New Caledonian crows display a preference for holding a stick tool on the right or left side of their beaks.

Researchers believe the birds may be trying to keep the tip of the stick in view of the eye on the opposite side of their heads.

Lead scientist Alejandro Kacelnik, from Oxford University, said: “If you were holding a brush in your mouth and one of your eyes was better than the other at brush length, you would hold the brush so that its tip fell in view of the better eye. This is what the crows do.”

Birds and humans face similar problems in tool use and many other activities

New Caledonian crows have surprised experts with their ability to use sticks to extract larvae from burrows and, in captivity, retrieve food placed out of reach.

The new study, published in the journal Current Biology, also suggests that the birds’ unusually wide field of vision actually helps them to see better with one eye.

Co-author Antone Martinho, also from Oxford University, said: “We thought that their binocular fields would facilitate binocular vision, perhaps allowing the birds to judge the distance from tool tip to target.

“It turned out that, most frequently, they only see the tool tip and target with one eye at a time.”

Kacelnik added: “Birds and humans face similar problems in tool use and many other activities.

“Studying similar problems across species helps to put all of them in perspective.”