Scientists discovered that Goffin’s cockatoos can combine two separate objects to solve a complex problem, showing that advanced tool use is not limited to primates.
Imagine a parrot playing a game of golf. It picks up a small ball, places it inside a box, and then uses a stick like a golf club to push the ball towards a hidden food reward. This may sound like a scene from a cartoon, but scientists have demonstrated that some Goffin’s cockatoos can solve a remarkably similar challenge.
The discovery offers an exciting insight into animal intelligence. It suggests that these birds can understand how two different objects work together, control their movements, and adjust their actions to achieve a specific goal. More importantly, it challenges the idea that complex tool use is mainly a skill associated with humans and other primates.
What Makes This Discovery So Special?
Humans have relied on tools for thousands of years to solve problems, build structures, hunt, and survive. However, using two separate tools together to achieve a single goal is much more complicated than using just one.
Scientists call this behaviour composite tool use. It occurs when two separate objects perform complementary functions during a task. For example, a person might use a stick to move an object that cannot be reached directly. In sports such as golf, a club controls the movement of a ball to send it towards a particular target.
This type of behaviour requires more than simply recognising an object. The user must understand the relationship between the objects, predict how one will affect the other, and control their movements with reasonable precision.
Composite tool use is relatively rare in animals. One well-known example comes from chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea, which use stones as hammers and other hard surfaces as anvils to crack nuts. Both objects contribute to the same goal, but the task requires coordination and appropriate positioning.
Until recently, researchers had limited evidence that animals outside the primate family could independently develop similarly complex tool-use strategies.
Meet the Goffin’s Cockatoo: A Problem-Solving Bird
The research, led by Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró and his colleagues, focused on Goffin’s cockatoos, a species of parrot known for its curiosity, playful behaviour, and ability to solve physical problems.
What makes these birds particularly interesting is that they do not depend heavily on tools to obtain food in the wild. Nevertheless, studies conducted in captivity have revealed impressive abilities, including manipulating objects, solving multi-step puzzles, and using tools in innovative ways.
This makes Goffin’s cockatoos valuable subjects for investigating how complex problem-solving abilities develop.
The researchers wanted to determine whether these birds could discover a completely new way of using two objects together without simply copying a behaviour they had already learned.
To investigate this, they designed an experiment called the Golf Club Task.
Inside the Golf Club Task
The experiment involved a specially designed puzzle box with a carpet-covered floor, openings along its sides, and platforms holding food rewards.
The birds received two objects: a small ball and a stick.
To obtain the food, a cockatoo had to complete a sequence of actions. First, it needed to insert the ball into the box. Next, it had to use the stick to push the ball across the carpet towards the opening associated with the reward.
The challenge was not simply to push the ball. The bird had to guide it in the correct direction while dealing with its changing position inside the box.
The ball and stick served different but complementary purposes. The ball was the object being moved, while the stick acted as the tool controlling its movement.
Success therefore required the birds to coordinate several things at once: the order in which they used the objects, their own position, the direction of the stick, and the movement of the ball.
In other words, the birds had to do more than use tools. They had to make two tools work together.
What Did the Scientists Discover?
Out of the 11 cockatoos tested, three met the researchers’ formal success criteria, while two additional birds managed to solve the task without reaching that standard.
The successful birds showed an impressive ability to learn from their own discoveries. After an initial period of exploration, they often became much faster at completing the task.
Instead of improving slowly over many attempts, some birds suddenly began performing the necessary actions efficiently after their first successful trials. This suggests that they could identify and remember the important steps once they discovered a working solution.
One particularly skilled cockatoo, named Figaro, demonstrated remarkable consistency. After several exploratory attempts, he reduced his movements to those needed to complete the task. His fastest attempts took approximately five seconds.
The birds also learned to follow the correct sequence: inserting the ball first and then using the stick to guide it.
Perhaps most surprisingly, they could aim. When the ball moved away from the intended opening, successful birds sometimes repositioned themselves or changed the angle of the stick to redirect it.
This behaviour suggests that they were controlling the relationship between the two objects rather than simply repeating random movements.
Different Birds, Different Strategies
Another fascinating finding was that the successful cockatoos did not all solve the puzzle in the same way.
They differed in how they held the stick, where they positioned themselves, and how they inserted the tool into the box. Some approaches were more efficient than others, but each successful bird developed its own technique.
These differences matter because they suggest that the birds were not simply following a single fixed behavioural pattern. Instead, they were discovering individual solutions to the same problem.
Some cockatoos, however, struggled to move beyond familiar techniques. For example, certain birds repeatedly inserted the stick through the central opening but failed to discover that approaching from the sides could help them reach the ball.
Researchers suggested that this difficulty might reflect functional fixedness—the tendency to keep using an object in a familiar way, even when a different approach is needed.
This contrast highlights an important point: intelligence does not mean that every individual will solve every problem. Even highly capable animals can become stuck when a task requires them to abandon a familiar strategy.
Can Cockatoos Learn by Watching Others?
The researchers also investigated whether unsuccessful birds could improve after watching successful cockatoos perform the task.
The results offered some evidence that demonstrations may influence learning. Some observers showed noticeable changes in their behaviour after watching another bird solve the puzzle.
However, the findings were not conclusive. Because the birds had already participated in earlier sessions, their improvement could also have resulted from additional experience rather than social learning alone.
Interestingly, observers did not necessarily copy the exact techniques used by the demonstrators. Instead, some appeared to explore new possibilities after watching another bird succeed.
This may reflect a process called emulation, in which an animal learns something about the result or purpose of an action without copying every movement used to achieve it.
Further research involving larger groups and better-controlled experiments will be needed to establish how social learning contributes to composite tool use in these parrots.
What Does This Mean for Human Evolution?
The findings have important implications for understanding the evolution of intelligence.
Complex tool use has often been studied through the behaviour of humans and other primates. The cockatoo experiment shows that some of the cognitive abilities needed for composite tool use can also emerge in birds, whose bodies and evolutionary history differ considerably from those of primates.
Unlike humans, cockatoos cannot manipulate objects with two hands. They must coordinate their beaks, tongues, and feet to interact with tools. Their success demonstrates that different physical structures can support sophisticated problem-solving behaviour.
However, this does not mean that cockatoos possess human-like intelligence in every respect, or that their abilities evolved in exactly the same way as ours. Rather, the research suggests that certain cognitive capacities may have evolved independently in different animal lineages.
Understanding these abilities could help scientists investigate how innovation, flexible thinking, and tool-related problem-solving develop across species.
Conclusion: Intelligence Comes in More Forms Than We Think
The Golf Club Task reveals that some Goffin’s cockatoos can independently discover how to combine two objects, coordinate their movements, and aim towards a goal. Their different strategies also demonstrate the importance of individual innovation in animal problem-solving.
Although only a small number of birds mastered the task, their performance provides valuable evidence that sophisticated tool use is not exclusive to primates.
The experiment does not prove that cockatoos think exactly like humans. Instead, it reveals something more interesting: nature may have developed complex problem-solving abilities through different evolutionary paths.
The next time you see a parrot playing with a stick or moving objects around, remember that what looks like simple play may reveal the beginnings of a surprisingly sophisticated ability—the ability to discover how things work together to solve a problem.
Reference: Osuna-Mascaró AJ, Mundry R, Tebbich S, Beck SR, Auersperg AMI. Innovative composite tool use by Goffin's cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana). Sci Rep. 2022 Jan 27;12(1):1510. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-05529-9. PMID: 35087147; PMCID: PMC8795444.
Comments
Post a Comment