Across India, Corvus splendens, or common house crows, are seen as messengers between the living and the dead. Wielding balls of rice and other favorite foods, countless families summon them, shouting “Caaw! Caaw!” 

As part of this ancient ritual, to honor your departed loved one, you can’t give up until the crows arrive and chow down. If you’re lucky, an extra-friendly crow or two will swoop in right away. But sometimes, the crows you encounter are more wary, so you continue shouting in the afternoon heat. 

In the South Pacific islands known as Kanaky, renamed New Caledonia by European colonizers, lives Corvus moneduloides, a crow species known for its ingenuity. Consider their metatool skills. Once thought to be exclusive to mammals, these birds are known for their uncanny ability to use, or even build, a series of tools to accomplish an ultimate task.

Like most complex tasks, some individuals make metatool use look easy, while others struggle and sometimes give up. Remarkable, and relatable.

Though we evolved along completely different paths, crows have always seemed like kindred spirits. That’s largely because crows are a lot like us. An integral part of that resemblance is the variation in crows’ thinking and antics.

They could be considered neurodiverse, except for the fact that the term isn’t supposed to apply to crows.

The concept of neurodiversity, which first arose in the 1990s, is considered a human-only term describing our natural neurological variation. The basic idea is that people’s thinking and reasoning inhabit an expansive spectrum in which nobody is normal or abnormal. 

The neurodiversity paradigm was largely built on the social model of autism, which asserts that there’s nothing inherently wrong with autistic folks. In this view, it largely is a society made by and for neurotypical people that marginalizes different thought processes and behavior. Over time, the neurodiversity umbrella grew to include other neurocognitive conditions in humans, like ADHD and OCD.

But why shouldn’t the umbrella expand to include non-humans?

A small but growing group of scholars and activists has been challenging the idea that neurodiversity is necessarily exclusive to humans. They suggest that there’s no inherent biological reason for that distinction. 

The variability of any trait, from wingspan to heart function to beak use to vision, is only a snapshot of the current moment in evolutionary time. The differences between neurocognitive abilities in any population are just one element in that intricate snapshot of biological variation.

In geologic time, it’s snapshots all the way down. 

Extracting any single phenotype from the time-old biosphere and examining it independently is a labyrinthine endeavor, perhaps as realistic as considering a frictionless plane. 

Viewed as one of the many inextricable elements of biodiversity, any species with a nervous system and social cognition exhibits neurodiversity in the same way any species with a circulatory system would ostensibly exhibit cardiodiversity. In that light, holding human neurodiversity up as special, especially without explicitly recognizing it as one component in an endless teeming whole, may be an iteration in humanity’s penchant for anthropocentric folly.

“[A]nimal neurodiversity and neurodivergence are almost non-existent" in scholarly and activist contexts, writes Ombre Tarragnat, a researcher studying the intersection of neurodiversity and animality, in a 2025 article. "Had the neurodiversity concept emerged in closer connection to biodiversity science,” they argue, “its definition would likely have been very different." 

Even certain invertebrates have their own forms of neurodiversity.

Consider Apis mellifera, or honeybees. When we think of a beehive, we picture one queen, who lays all of the eggs, and droves of workers and soldier drones. But look closer, and it’s clear that they hardly fit the stereotype of a “hive mind.” 

The queen’s subjects aren’t all the same. Studies suggest that some honeybee individuals seem to be better learners than others, including learning to make sense of smells and landmarks. And even though honeybees are famous for communication through dance, some foraging bees apparently prefer to rely on their own intel.  There’s also strong evidence that, like many other animals, honeybees show consistent individual variation along a slow-fast continuum, in which higher risk-taking and impulsivity tend to be paired with a faster pace of life.

This is, of course, a highly abridged list of variable neurocognitive traits in Apis mellifera observed so far. Altogether, this variation may help honeybee populations adapt to their vastly varied habitats. 

There is still loads to unravel about why bees think and act differently, but one thing is clear—just like any other form of biodiversity, that variation seems to come down to the reproductive success of groups. Genetics, gene expression, and environmental circumstances all interact in unimaginably complex ways, manifesting as a prism of behavioral diversity. 

In a nutshell, diverse ways of thinking and interacting with the world somehow abet survival. Why should it be any different for Homo sapiens?

Since prehistoric times, humans have intuited that variation in social and non-social cognitive skills can benefit groups. There’s a reason that Avery is always tasked with delivering bad news, or that everyone calls Tony for houseplant advice. It wasn’t too different in hunter-gatherer societies. One group member’s charisma would come in handy when encountering strangers, while another’s extreme pattern recognition and attention to detail would have helped keep track of the seasons or which plants have which effect. 

Neurocognitive variation is governed by variation in the brain, with some environmental influence thrown in the mix. One of the most visually striking parts of the human brain is the grooved and ridged neocortex, which surrounds the rest of the organ like a squishy shell. 

During gestation, the folded structure differentiates into six distinct layers that aren’t visible to the human eye, stacked together and bunched up into folds.  

Behavioral variability in mammals is rooted in differences in the function of specific cell types in those cortical layers. Scientists have long been studying how these differences in the brain manifest behaviorally, with the advent of single-cell RNA sequencing enabling them to zoom in on the most granular, cell-level variation.

The picture the evidence paints suggests that human behavior is governed by a vast biological switchboard in the neocortex. Closely related mammals have similar, but not identical, cortical switchboards suited to their biological niches. Human switchboards are almost entirely the same, but the minuscule variation between individuals' cortical layers underlies our sometimes vast behavioral differences.

There are complex, non-homologous evolutionary reasons for brain variation in social species.

Crows, for instance, also have a complex neurocognitive switchboard, but instead of a neocortex, they have clusters of varied neuron types in a structure called the pallium. These arrangements of neural circuitry evolved independently over deep time, building distinct machinery that nevertheless produces similar abilities, like holding petty grudges or solving super complicated problems.

In a sense, just like evolution begets biodiversity, evolution also begets neurodiversity.

The perpetual emergence of unique abilities and the proverbial switches that govern them comes with a built-in spectrum of ways they can manifest. 

There’s a cognitive tradeoff that benefits groups on the whole. Humans have slightly different capacities for different behaviors. Some people have switch configurations that manifest as, say, major rizz, and some have a unique ability to grasp complicated concepts that go over most folks’ heads. This is admittedly a major oversimplification that goes to show that no one individual has the capacity to excel at every social and non-social cognitive ability. 

According to current diagnostic criteria for autism, which have been in flux for over a century, autistic people experience both persistent deficits in social communication and interaction, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior or interests that lead to significant impairment.

There’s a myth that, in Autism Spectrum Disorder, the “spectrum” is a linear one, from low to high needs. In reality, no autistic person is less autistic than another; the spectrum looks more like an undulating sphere. 

People tend to slot neurocognitive abilities into ideological boxes—normal and abnormal.

But, despite humanity’s penchant for categorization and definition, nearly nothing in nature fits neatly into dominant scientific constructs. We’re getting closer and closer to consensus: The Earth revolves around the sun, vaccines save lives, and, when it comes to practically anything involving living things, nothing fits into clear-cut categories.

Diversity is nature’s norm.

None of this is to say that autistic and other neurodivergent people don't face struggles. Many have high needs and require care and support, sometimes 24/7, throughout their lives. This lifelong commitment is a massive burden for parents of high needs individuals. Those with low support needs still typically struggle and expend more of their bandwidth coping with a world that can feel overwhelming.

Advocates argue that a society that deliberately includes all neurotypes would benefit not only autistic people but everyone.

The deficit framing is predicated on colonialist and capitalist systems built to uphold hierarchies and maximize profits. But what if we rebuilt the world to accommodate all neurocognitive differences and needs?

If we saw human neurodiversity as part of the timeless biosphere, perhaps we’d see that the Anthropocene is what’s forcing atypical behaviors into disorder territory. A key aspect of achieving equity is dismantling the silos artificially separating us.

Scholars and activists have been addressing these questions for decades. The battle to mainstream the principle that nobody is inherently flawed has been riddled with obstacles. The hope is that advocates’ grueling determination will someday culminate in an equitable world. 

Above all else, the autistic community generally agrees that nothing should happen “about us without us” —a slogan that disability rights advocates have championed for decades. 

That means that autistic folks need to be at the helm of anything involving autism and neurodiversity, from research to legislation, and in decision-making about supports, policies, and programs. Intersectionality is also crucial; non-white Americans, gender non-conforming people, and other minorities face even steeper challenges, so centering marginalized autistic folks is key. 

If you’re not autistic or disabled, take notes from those with lived experience.

Be prepared to call out other neurotypical people who can’t resist the urge to interject when it’s not about them. Take to heart the urgency of the situation—autistic folks are being sidelined in education, the workplace, and other settings, and are disproportionately victims of violence.

Some researchers say that more accurate and comprehensive childhood education on the biology of neurodiversity and the relevant social context will help move the needle away from seeing differences as inherent deficits. 

But people of all ages could use a more comprehensive grasp of neurodiversity as a part of human nature. It’s not just a semantic distinction. It’s a reminder that no way of thinking is better or worse in any sentient creature.

The term biodiversity is rooted in biology, while the term neurodiversity is based in social justice, but both of these perspectives may be far more inextricable than we know.

Here, we can glean wisdom from bees and crows.

Autism and neurodivergence were never defects caused in individual humans by any specific trigger, like vaccines or Tylenol. Our neurodiversity has always been one component of collective biological variability.

To ultimately shift the paradigm will require a collective shift not only in how we assign value to neurotypes in schools, the workplace, or any other setting, but in how we see individuals as members of humanity, as humanity as one element of life on Earth.