Watch this genius bird plan for its ‘handyman’ job

The Goffin’s cockatoo is the handyman of the avian kingdom . This crested, white-feathered Indonesian bird crafts what are essentially crowbars, ice picks, and spoons to pry open its favorite fruits, making it one of very few species to not only use tools, but fashion an entire tool set. Now, researchers have shown the cockatoos appear to plan ahead for the job, toting with them the tools needed to solve a puzzle. Outside of humans, carrying tools for a future job has only been seen in one other animal—a population of wild chimpanzees in the Congo Basin. The work shows tool set planning is “not unique” to great apes, says Richard Byrne, an emeritus primatologist at the University of St. Andrews who has studied manual skills and planning in gorillas and chimpanzees but who was not involved with the new research. It’s “a fine example of the clever use of experiment and observations to explore a tricky area of psychology: Can an animal think ahead like we do?” To investigate that question, scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna tempted lab-kept Goffin’s cockatoos ( Cacatua goffiniana ) with their favorite snack: cashews. Inside a see-through acrylic box, the researchers placed a single nut on a platform, then blocked the birds’ access to it with a small screen. One at a time, 10 captive cockatoos were shown the box and offered two tools: a short, pointed stick and a longer, flexible straw. Most...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news