Cockatoos can tell when they need more than one tool to get their claws

Or I need to forget the drill. A stick and straw make a great tool for cockatiel decoration.

Some Goffin is cockatoos (Goffinian cockatoo) We know whether it is necessary to have more than one piece of hardware in the claws to lock in cash-out, the researchers report on February 10 in Current Biology. Recognizing that two things are necessary to access a snack, birds join chimpanzees as the only non-human animals known to use tools as a set.

The study is a fascinating example of what cockatoos are capable of, says Anne Clark, a humanistic ecologist at Binghamton University in New York, who was not involved in the study. The mental awareness that humans often attribute to our closest relatives, our primates, can also populate elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

A variety of animals including crows and otters use tools but do not develop many objects such as jewelry (SN: 9/14/16; SN: 3/21/17). The chimpanzees from the National Park of the Republic of Noubalé-Ndoki Congo, in turn, recognize the need for both a sharp stick to break the termite mounds and a fishing pole to remove the insect feast.SN: 10/19/04).

The researchers knew that wild cockatoos could use three different sticks to crack open fruit in their native Indonesia. But it was unclear whether the birds recognized it as a set or as a chain of individual tools that became necessary for new problems, says evolutionary biologist Antonio Osuna Mascaró of the Medical University of Vienna.

Osuna Mascaró and colleagues first tested whether cockatoos would know how to solve a cashew placed in a clear box and behind a thin paper barrier, similar to chimpanzees hunting for termites. Six out of 10 cockatoos definitely knocked the nut out of the box using a sharp stick through the membrane and plastic straws to fish for the cashew.

Two birds managed the task in less than 35 seconds on their first attempt. Both – a male named Figaro and a female named Fini – are expert users of the tool, says Osuna Mascaró.

Figaro, Fini and the three cockatiel companions in both stick and straw were more likely when the box had a sticker inside the paper. If the team removed the obstacle, the birds destroyed the straw instead of the staff as their tool.

Even when the birds had to walk or fly to reach the box, the birds brought both tools every time the box was blocked. If there was no paper, the cockatoos used to bring only one, a sign the cockatoos recognized when they needed their tool to look for the whole kit for their claws.

The three birds also learned to put a stick inside the straw to carry them both together. What made transportation more efficient is that birds don’t have to make two trips and waste energy. The two birds, Kiwi and Pippin, carried both tools at the same time every time the baggage box was transported. Kiwi rarely used both tools if it wasn’t paper, and Pippin did it half as often.

A business that can bring tools to the table. After Figaro learned to combine transport, he grasped both tools in 16 out of 18 trials. That may be what Osuna Mascaró, one of the strongest birds in the group, says. For him, there is not a lot of tweaking of tools at the same time. Kiwi and Pippin are weaker against Figaro.

Cockatoos raised in the lab probably display more abilities than wild birds to use on an average day, Clark says. “But they can do this,” he said. “This does not mean that a grown male barbarian … can do the same thing as Figaro. But he would probably have been able to do that if he had been brought up like Figaro.