Change is in the air

In 2002, a car wash in Frederick, Md. was losing significant amounts of money form its coin machines each week. Some external employees were even accused of having a key to the boxes and rip the owner off. Finally they decided to setup a trap for the thief. Check out the amazing evidence here.

Starlings, the birds pictured here, are often attracted to bright, shiny objects and will collect them for nesting or mate-attraction purposes whenever the opportunity presents itself. Most likely one or more starlings was attracted by the glint of overlooked quarters in the change cup and made off with them; other starlings saw where the quarters were coming from and imitated the behavior, learning in the process how to work as teams to retrieve coins from inside the machine itself.

According to some media, about $4,000 in change was retrieved from the roof of the car wash. Sounds fun, but it's not true. The car wash operator did not report finding any such rooftop stash, although his discovering a few hundred quarters on the ground around the machine some mornings was not uncommon.