Cockatoos have often attracted attention due to their cleverness and ability to learn. Now biologists in Australia have again discovered evidence of the intelligence of these parrot birds: Yellow-crested cockatoos in Sydney have learned to open the lids of garbage cans to get to leftover food. Closer examination revealed that the birds had copied the trick from one another. In this way, these parrots show social learning – a skill that has so far only been observed in a few species in the animal kingdom.
For a long time, birds were considered to be less intelligent – also because their brains are structured differently than that of higher mammals. But in recent years some clever birds, including crows and parrots, have taught biologists better. Through experiments they were able to show that these birds make and use tools, form communities with a complex social structure and also learn from each other. “So far there are only a few known examples of animals learning from each other,” explains Barbara Klump from the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Konstanz.
Opening rope with beak and foot
One of these examples is the yellow-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) native to the east coast of Australia. The starting point for this finding was a chance observation made by the biologist Richard Major of the Australian Museum: He filmed one of these cockatoos opening a closed garbage can: The cockatoo used its beak and foot to lift the heavy lid. Then he ran along the side in the direction of the hinge to tip the lid over and easily get to the leftover food inside the bin. “Like many Australian birds, Yellow-crested Cockatoos are loud and aggressive. But they are also incredibly smart, persistent and have adapted extremely well to living with people, ”says Major.
This was the impetus for Klump and her team to investigate more closely how common this behavior is in the yellow-crested cockatoos and whether the birds can copy this trick from one another. “It was so exciting to see such an ingenious and innovative way of accessing a food source that we immediately knew that we wanted to systematically investigate this unique behavior,” says Klump. That is why they started an online survey in 2018 in which they wanted to know who had seen cockatoos opening garbage cans and where. Over the course of two years, 1,396 reports came together, including 338 sightings of barrel-opening cockatoos. “The survey helped us understand how the behavior spreads to other cockatoos in Sydney,” explains co-author John Martin of the Taronga Conservation Society.
Fast spread by copying
The evaluations showed: While before 2018 only cockatoos had been spotted opening garbage cans in three areas of Sydney, at the end of 2019 there were reports from 44 areas. This trick had therefore spread quickly and widely among the clever cockatoos. The geographic spread also showed that cockatoos in neighboring districts adopted this technique earlier than those in more distant districts. “These results show that the animals really learned their behavior from other cockatoos in their environment,” says Klump. Additional observations showed that mostly only a part of the cockatoos in a group mastered the opening technique, mostly it was the stronger males. The rest waited until these “pioneers” opened the garbage cans to help themselves.
Also interesting: at the end of 2018, a cockatoo in the north of Sydney reinvented the technique of looting for itself. Birds in neighboring districts then copied his behavior. “We have observed that the birds do not open the garbage cans in the same way everywhere, but use different opening techniques in different suburbs,” reports Klump. By copying different techniques, regional subcultures were created. Overall, these observations confirm that the yellow-crested cockatoos are one of the few animals that have so far demonstrated this ability for social learning and cultural transmission.
Source: Max Planck Society; Technical article: Science, doi: 10.1126 / science.abe7808