Skilful cockatoos able to shape same tool from different materials
Skilful cockatoos able to shape same tool from different materials
November 15, 2016
Source: University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna
Summary: Tool manufacture was once regarded a defining feature of humankind, but it is now known that a variety of animal species use and make their own tools. In nature, some of the most striking cases of tool-related behavior are seen not just among close relatives of Homo sapiens, such as chimps and other primates, but among birds including crows, vultures and Galapagos finches. Researchers have now shown that Goffin's cockatoos can make and use elongated tools of appropriate shape and length out of amorphous materials, suggesting that the birds can anticipate how the tools will be used.
The cockatoos can cut out elongated tools of a cardboard to rake pieces of food.
Credit: Bene Croy
Tool manufacture was once regarded a defining feature of humankind, but it is now known that a variety of animal species use and make their own tools. In nature, some of the most striking cases of tool-related behaviour are seen not just among close relatives of Homo sapiens, such as chimps and other primates, but among birds including crows, vultures and Galapagos finches. Researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna and the University of Oxford have shown that Goffin's cockatoos can make and use elongated tools of appropriate shape and length out of amorphous materials, suggesting that the birds can anticipate how the tools will be used. The study was published in the journal Biology Letters.
In all cases, what makes this possible is possessing the right combination of heritable and acquired competencies, as well as being capable of a degree of individual creativity. The Goffin's cockatoo is a particularly interesting example for scientists to study, as it is unlikely to have a repertoire of inherited tool-related skills and relies more on innovation and problem-solving.
Why and how did cockatoos learn to use tools?
The Goffin's cockatoo, which is native to Indonesia, is neither known to use tools in the wild nor to have evolved related abilities for manipulating twigs for other purposes such as nest building. One bird, called Figaro, previously displayed the ability to spontaneously (ie without training) make tools by biting long splinters out of the wooden beams of its cage, which he then used to rake pieces of food that were otherwise out of reach. Three others have since followed, showing that making such tools is within the capacity of the species.
While impressive, these feats do not prove sensitivity to the need for the tools to be of a particular shape: because wood is fibrous, biting and pulling actions naturally split it into the long, narrow pieces that were necessary to succeed. If individuals are capable of anticipating the requirements of each tool, they should be able to produce functional instruments by displaying different actions and using different materials.
Cockatoos can even make effective tools out of cardboard
To test if the birds were in fact aiming to make elongated tools that could bridge a particular distance, the researchers gave them the problem of reaching a piece of food placed a few centimetres beyond a circular hole in the transparent wall of a box. They were given four different materials that required different manipulations to produce suitable tools: larch wood (already familiar to them), leafy beech twigs (which had to be trimmed to be functional), cardboard (which, lacking a fibrous structure, could be cut into any shape and length), and totally amorphous beeswax.
More:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161115210016.htm
Science:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/122849703
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