Forget screwdrivers or drills. A stick and a straw make for a great cockatoo tool kit.
Some Goffin’s cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana) know whether they need to have more than one tool in claw to topple an out-of-reach cashew, researchers report February 10 in Current Biology. By recognizing that two items are necessary to access the snack, the birds join chimpanzees as the only nonhuman animals known to use tools as a set.
The study is a fascinating example of what cockatoos are capable of, says Anne Clark, a behavioral ecologist at Binghamton University in New York, who was not involved in the study. A mental awareness that people often attribute to our close primate relatives can also pop up elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
A variety of animals including crows and otters use tools but don’t deploy multiple objects together as a kit (SN: 9/14/16; SN: 3/21/17). Chimpanzees from the Republic of Congo’s Noubalé-Ndoki National Park, on the other hand, recognize the need for both a sharp stick to break into termite mounds and a fishing stick to scoop up an insect feast (SN: 10/19/04).
Researchers knew wild cockatoos could use three different sticks to break open fruit in their native range of Indonesia. But it was unclear whether the birds might recognize the sticks as a set or instead as a chain of single tools that became necessary as new problems arose, says evolutionary biologist Antonio Osuna Mascaró of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.
2023-02-10 11:00:06
Link from www.sciencenews.org
In recent years, cockatoos have been observed exhibiting a unique level of intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. It is an especially impressive feat when one considers such a high level of intelligence in a species that lacks hands and thumbs to facilitate complex tool-making. Even more remarkable is the capacity to recognize when two tools, or materials, are necessary to obtain a desired reward.
Research conducted in 2017 focused on a group of Goffin’s cockatoos and the task of obtaining a small nut from a glass container. In order to reach the nut, the cockatoos had to select two tools that were purposely made: A wooden block, and a bamboo stick. Remarkably, the cockatoos solved the challenge, with four out of seven birds reaching the nut by using the two tools to pry open the container.
This behavior is similar to that of other species that use two tools together for foraging, such as chimpanzees and Macaque monkeys, however, unlike these primates, cockatoos lack opposable thumbs to increase their tool-making ability. This shows that a high degree of cognitive functionality can exist in species that are not traditionally associated with tool-making.
The experiment also tested solutions to optimize the nut-retrieval process, with the bamboo stick placed near the glass container already, or near the wooden block. When the stick was placed near the glass container, the birds chose it first, and then the block, in order to use the two tools together. Whereas when the block was placed near the container, the birds continued to choose the bamboo stick first. This suggests that the birds developed an awareness that the wooden block and bamboo stick were necessary to complete this challenge.
These findings suggest that Goffin’s cockatoos are able not only to devise solutions to complex tasks, but also recognize when more than one tool is necessary to complete the task. This incredible feat of problem-solving and tool-using is an example of the birds’ extraordinary intelligence, and adds to the list of remarkable achievements seen in non-primate species.