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. 2016 Nov;12(11):20160689.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0689.

Goffin's cockatoos make the same tool type from different materials

Alice M I Auersperg  1 , Stefan Borasinski  2 , Isabelle Laumer  2 , Alex Kacelnik  3
Affiliations

Goffin's cockatoos make the same tool type from different materials

Alice M I Auersperg et al. Biol Lett. 2016 Nov.

Abstract

Innovative tool manufacture is rare and hard to isolate in animals. We show that an Indonesian generalist parrot, the Goffin's cockatoo, can flexibly and spontaneously transfer the manufacture of stick-type tools across three different materials. Each material required different manipulation patterns, including substrates that required active sculpting for achieving a functional, elongated shape.

Keywords: innovation; parrot; tool manufacture.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Left: material provided: beeswax (BW), larch wood (LW), cardboard (CB) or beech twig (TW). Right: apparatus, baited with a food reward. Dimensions are in centimetres.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Average length of successful tools built in two consecutive successful sessions (20 trials) by each subject (bar shading) for each material (see labels on x-axis); error bars = s.e.; the second (lower) dataset within LW and CB represents the length of non-successful tools. Picture shows CB-tool making (picture credits: Solvin Zankl). (Online version in colour.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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