Cockatoos: The New Tool Masters

A fascinating discovery has revealed that cockatoos know how to use sets of tools when working on tasks. Until now, chimpanzees were the only non-human species known to have this skill.

Beyond Simple Tools

Scientists already knew that cockatoos could use simple tools. But this ability goes much further than we thought. The new study shows these clever birds understand when a job needs multiple tools.

Prepared for the Job

What's most impressive is that cockatoos don't just grab tools when they see them. They actually show up ready for work with their own little tools for the task at hand.

This finding changes what we know about animal intelligence. Tool use has long been seen as a sign of advanced thinking. For many years, we thought this kind of planning and tool use was limited to primates like chimpanzees.

Smart Birds

Cockatoos belong to the parrot family, which are already known for their smarts. They can solve puzzles, mimic human speech, and remember complex information. Now we can add multi-tool use to their list of impressive abilities.

The research helps us understand how intelligence develops in different animal groups. Even though birds and mammals split on the evolutionary tree millions of years ago, both groups have developed similar problem-solving skills.

What This Means

This discovery opens new doors for research on animal cognition. Scientists will now look more closely at how cockatoos choose and use their tools. They'll also search for this ability in other smart birds like crows and ravens.

The next time you see a cockatoo, remember - you're looking at one of the animal kingdom's most clever tool users. These birds don't just have beautiful feathers and loud calls. They have problem-solving skills that rival some of our closest relatives in the animal world.