Tool making cockatoos adjust the lengths but not the widths of their tools to function.

ABSTRACT: The ability to innovatively use or even manufacture different tools depending on a current situation can be silhouetted against examples of stereotyped, inborn tool use/manufacture and is thus often associated to advanced cognitive processing. In this study we confronted non-specialized, yet innovative tool making birds, Goffin's cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana), with an apparatus featuring an out-of-reach food reward that could be placed at different distances from a tool opening. Alternatively, the food stayed at a constant distance but the tool opening in the front of the apparatus had different diameters. We used a novel material for tool manufacture (cardboard) that demanded an incrementally increased manufacturing effort from the actor, depending on the length of the tool required. We

SUBMITTER: Auersperg AMI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6221259 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature