SEATTLE -- A dog with (possibly) titanium teeth may have helped take down Osama bin Laden, but if it hadn't, the late terrorist leader may have been tracked down by a different member of the animal kingdom: a crow.

Researchers at the University of Washington spent a portion of the last decade training crows to recognize faces, in a project funded by the U.S. Military, KUOW reported Thursday.

"One of the experimental branches of research that was used to try to find him was to have crows or ravens of the local area trained to identify his face," John Marzluff, a wildlife sciences professor at UW, told KUOW. "They have a long-term memory, very acute discrimination abilities, and if a group of crows knew bin Laden as an enemy, they would certainly indicate his presence when they next saw him."

More information on the study is available at the link.Copyright 2011 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.