Goffin’s cockatoos have been added to the tiny list of non-human animals that can use and transport sets of tools. Video taken by the researchers for a study published in the journal Current Biology on 10 February 2023 shows that cockatoos can carry and use multiple tools to obtain food.
This behaviour has only been previously reported in chimpanzees, our closest relatives. Goffin’s cockatoos are small white parrots that hail from the Tanimbar Islands archipelago in Indonesia. Captive Goffin’s cockatoos were previously found to use and manufacture tools.
However, up until now, though, it wasn’t clear whether the cockatoos considered these tools as a “set” which complemented each other and could be used to complete a certain task.
“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,” says first author Antonio Osuna-Mascaró an evolutionary biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.
The 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 ten cockatoos tested taught themselves to extract cashews successfully by punching through the membrane and two of the cockatoos (Figaro and Fini) completed the task within 35 seconds on their first attempt.
Some cockatoos learned to carry the two tools together—by inserting the short punching stick into the groove of the halved straw - when they were presented with a box that required both.