Goffin's cockatoos can use tool sets, study finds
The study found that Goffin's cockatoos can transport tools together when more than one is needed for a task.
A new study has shown that Goffin’s cockatoos are able to recognise when a set of tools is needed to complete a task and transport the tools together.
Although a significant number of animals use tools, the ability to recognise the need for a tool set is rare. Apart from humans, Goffin’s are only the second species to have been reported to transport tool sets in the wild. The other is chimpanzees.
The study, published in Current Biology, used a set of three experiments to test the ability of 10 Goffin’s to complete a task that needed more than one tool.
Each bird was presented with a box with a cashew nut in it. To get to the nut, the bird had to use one tool to break through a membrane and then another to scoop it out of the box.
In the first experiment, the birds had to select and use the correct tools to access the nut. In the second, the birds were presented with a sequence of two different boxes, one requiring two tools to access the nut, the other requiring just one.
In the third and final experiment, the tools were moved away from the apparatus containing the nut, forcing the birds to decide whether to transport the tools individually or together.
The researchers found that not only could most of the birds in the study work out that two tools were needed to complete the task, but three of the birds transported the two tools together, showing they understood that both tools would be needed.
Antonio Osuna-Mascaró, one of the researchers from the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine involved in the study, said: “Our cockatoos, did always have the opportunity to go back and forth, using one tool and then go back to pick up, transport and use the other. Instead, at least three of them learned to collect both tools in advance. This suggests that they can categorize both tools as a set.”
Goffin’s ability to use tools has been known for some time. Previous research has shown that they have the intelligence to adjust the length of the tools they use.
Another member of the research team, Alice Auersperg, commented on the importance of the new study: “For understanding the emergence our own technical abilities, it is necessary to not only look at our most closed living relatives, but additionally at how similar capacities arise in species that are extremely distantly related to us (in this case separated by more than 300 million years of evolution).”
BSAVA is to partner with BVA Live (11-12 June 2026) to champion clinical research.
