Cockatoos learning carpentry skills sounds like a parrot sketch worthy of Monty Python. Yet this is not an example of surreal humour.
Scientists have observed the brainy birds teaching each other how to make and use wooden tools to obtain food. It all started with a captive Goffin’s cockatoo named Figaro who surprised researchers in Austria by spontaneously fashioning stick tools from aviary beam splinters to rake up nuts. He then became the role model for other members of his species.
In a series of experiments, the birds watched Figaro perform and copied him by manipulating readymade sticks to obtain food.
The brainy birds teach each other how to make and use wooden tools to obtain food
Remarkably, rather than simply imitating Figaro – parrot-fashion – they developed their own technique adapted to work best in the test situation.
Two of the cockatoos were even able to carve their own tools out of a wooden block. One hit on the idea himself while the other succeeded after first watching a carpentry demonstration from Figaro.
Alex Kacelnik, a member of the research team from Oxford University, said: “There is a substantial difference between repeating a teacher’s behaviour and emulating his or her achievements while creating one’s own methods.
“The latter implies a creative process stimulated by a social interaction, while the former could, at least potentially, rely on simpler imitation. The cockatoos seem to emulate and surpass their teacher, which is what all good professors hope for from their best students.”The research is reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
In the experiments, one cockatoo group was shown Figaro at work with his stick tool, while scientists baffled another with “ghost demonstrations” in which hidden magnets were used to make sticks and nuts move apparently on their own.
The parrots who watched Figaro’s performance were much more likely to pick up and try out stick tools for themselves than those seeing the ghost demonstrations.
While Figaro held sticks by their tips and inserted them through his cage grid at different heights to reach the nuts, his pupils did things differently.
The successful observers laid the sticks on the ground and used a quick flipping movement to propel the nuts to within their reach.
Reinforcing gender stereotypes, male cockatoos turned out to be much better with tools than females. All three males in the group watching Figaro’s demonstration became expert stick wielders, while none of the three females did.
The way the parrots modified their tools – for instance by breaking off pieces that prevented them being pushed through cage grid – and selected only sticks that were long enough suggested “functional apprehension”, said the scientists.