Goffin's Cockatoos Can Design and Make Useful Tools - Professor Alex Kacelnik and Co-researchers Make New Discovery

Professor Alex Kacelnik, Pembroke Tutor in Zoology, EP Abraham Fellow and Professor of Behavioural Ecology, has co-authored a research paper entitled ‘Goffin’s cockatoos make the same tool type from different materials’.

The discovery that Goffin’s cockatoos are capable of making their own tools was made by Prof. Kacelnik and his co-researchers at the University of Oxford and the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.

A filmed experiment shows the bird making a similar shaped tool from several different kinds of materials (larch wood, beech twig and cardboard) in order to retrieve food that is hard to reach. This is the first time scientists have been able to prove that the species can design and anticipate using tools.

The most remarkable tools were those made from cardboard, as the material necessitates a more active shaping in comparison to wood, which naturally splinters. As the photograph illustrates, the bird literally carves out the long tool by making a series of parallel bite marks in the cardboard. Furthermore, the length of this tool was just over the minimum length necessary to reach the food.

This investigation was prompted when researchers at the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna observed a Goffin’s cockatoo called Figaro making tools. He was seen biting long splinters from the wooden beams of his cage and using them to access food that was out of reach. The recent discovery relates to birds in captivity and it is not thought that Goffin’s cockatoos create tools in the wild.

Commenting on the new knowledge that the Goffin’s cockatoo species have the capacity for designing and creating useful tools propels future research, Prof. Kacelnik said:

 ‘Ultimately, we want to understand how animals think – namely, to produce the equivalent of explicit computer programs capable of doing what the birds do. We really don't know if the birds can picture in their minds an object that doesn't yet exist and follow this image as a template to build something new, or how their brains elicit the appropriate set of movements to organise their response to novel problems, but this is what we are trying to find out.’

'Studying tool-making in species like the Goffin's cockatoo, which does not make tools naturally, is especially revealing, as these birds cannot do it by following pre-programmed instructions evolved to solve this specific problem. These cockatoos, like other parrots, offer wonderful research opportunities: their intelligence is flexible and powerful, they can solve physical and logical problems, they can learn from watching the behaviour of others, they can learn about the surrounding objects by playing – and now it seems plausible that they can imagine which object would allow them to solve a new problem and go on to build it. I am sure that they will keep surprising us.'

Read the full research paper here.