Cockatoos more inventive than expected

Cockatoos are smarter than previously thought. In behavioral biology, “tool making” is seen as one of the most complicated behaviors. An animal creates his own tool in order to reach its goal. The animal then has to be intelligent enough to have a goal, to know there is a problem and to find the solution to the problem by creating an object that will do the trick. For example, the animal cannot reach a worm inside a hole that it wants to eat. The problem is that the hole is too narrow to reach into. It finds the solution by shaping or finding a splinter of wood long enough to reach into the hole. It will use the splinter to extract a worm from the hole. Complicated!

In cockatoos the making of tools was not yet described in the wild. But a captive Goffin’s cockatoo in Australia demonstrated how he can reach a nut that’s placed just outside it’s aviary. It breaks off a piece of wood and uses it to push the nut closer to him until he can pick it up. Smart! Check out the video: