This is how clever cockatoos use ‘toolkits’

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Clever cockatoos take a "toolkit" with them when they fish for cashews, reveals a new study.

Goffin’s cockatoos - small white parrots from the Tanimbar Islands archipelago in Indonesia - are only the second non-human animals after chimpanzees found to use and transport multiple tools.

A recent study of wild-caught members of the species found that they can use up to three different tools to extract seeds from a particular fruit.

However, it wasn’t clear whether they considered the tools as a “set.”

Now, researchers have used controlled experiments to clarify that the cockatoos do indeed recognize when a job requires more than one tool.

Study first author Antonio Osuna-Mascaró, said: “With this experiment, we can say that, like chimpanzees, Goffin’s cockatoos not only appear to be to using toolsets, but they know that they are using toolsets.

“Their flexibility of behavior is stunning.”

Mr. Osuna-Mascaró, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, was inspired by the termite-fishing Goualougo Triangle chimps of northern Congo, the only other known non-human animal to use toolsets.

The chimps use a blunt stick to smash holes in the termite mound, and then they insert a long, flexible probe to “fish” the termites out of the holes.

In the new study, published in the journal Current Biology, researchers presented the cockatoos with a box containing a cashew behind a transparent paper membrane.

To reach the cashew, the cockatoos had to punch through the membrane and then “fish” the cashew out.

They were provided with a short, pointy stick for punching holes and a vertically halved plastic straw for fishing.

Seven of the 10 birds tested taught themselves to extract cashews successfully by punching through the membrane, and two of them, called Figaro and Fini, completed the task within 35 seconds on their first attempt.

Researchers also tested the cockatoos’ ability to change their tool use in a flexible manner depending on the situation.

They presented each bird with two types of boxes: one with a membrane and one without. The cockatoos were given the same two tools, but they only needed the pointy stick when a membrane was in the way.

Mr. Osuna-Mascaró said: “The cockatoos had to act according to the problem; sometimes the toolset was needed, and sometimes only one tool was enough."

All of the birds mastered the test quickly and were able to recognize when a single tool was sufficient.

Mr. Osuna-Mascaró said: “When making the choice between which tool to use first, they were picking one up, releasing it, then picking up the other one, releasing it, returning to the first one, and so on."

The team found that when cockatoos did the switching, they performed better on the tests.

They then tested the cockatoos’ ability to transport the tools as a set on an as-needed basis by putting the birds through a series of increasingly difficult trials to reach the boxes.

Most of them transported the toolset on an as-needed basis, further indicating that they knew ahead of time when two tools were required, though some made two trips when necessary.

One of the birds, Figaro, decided not to waste time thinking and instead carried both tools in almost every trial.

Study senior author Dr. Alice Auersperg said: “We really did not know whether the cockatoos would transport two objects together.

“It was a little bit of a gamble because I have seen birds combining objects playfully, but they very rarely transport more than one object together in their normal behavior.”

Dr. Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna says there’s a lot more to be learned about cockatoos' tool use, adding: “We feel that, in terms of technical cognition and tool use, parrots have been underestimated and understudied."

Mr. Osuna-Mascaró added: “We’ve learned how dexterous the cockatoos are when using a toolset, and we have a lot of things to follow up on.

“The switching behavior is very interesting to us, and we are definitely going to use it to explore their decision-making and their metacognition - their ability to recognize their own knowledge.”