Cockatoos are able to solve a mechanical puzzle, as long as there are treats involved.
The researchers observed 10 untrained cockatoos pick a set of five interlocking devices in order to get a nut featured behind a transparent door, according to an Oxford University press release.
To get the nut the birds had pull out a pin, then a screw, and then a bolt. After those were removed the cockatoos needed to turn a wheel 90 degrees and shift a latch sideways.
The champion cockatoo, Pippin, cracked the puzzle in less than two hours without any help.
The other birds needed more assistance, they were presented with each section of the combination in increments, or got to watch another bird open the door.
The team found the birds were determined to solve the puzzle, even thought they were only rewarded when it was totally solved.
"We cannot prove that the birds understand the physical structure of the problem as an adult human would, but we can infer from their behaviour that they are sensitive to how objects act on each other, and that they can learn to progress towards a distant goal without being rewarded step by step," Professor Alex Kacelnik, who participated in the study, said.
The researchers noticed the cockatoos used a "cognitive ratchet" process. "Once they discovered how to solve one lock they rarely had any difficulties with the same device again," the release stated.
"After the bird's initial success, the researchers wanted to find out if they were able to repeat the entire process, or if they could only respond to each individual lock. After they had solved the initial problem, we confronted six subjects with so-called 'transfer tasks' in which some locks were re-ordered, removed, or made non-functional. Statistical analysis showed that they reacted to the changes with immediate sensitivity to the novel situation," Dr Alice Auersperg, who led the study, said.
The research shed a new light on how birds experience the world.
"The birds' sudden and often errorless improvement and response to changes indicates pronounced behavioral plasticity and practical memory. We believe that they are aided by species characteristics such as intense curiosity, tactile exploration techniques and persistence: cockatoos explore surrounding objects with their bill, tongue and feet. A purely visual explorer may have never detected that they could move the locks," Dr Auguste von Bayern, another co-author, said.
WATCH:
Related Articles:
World's Oldest Bird Fossil
Passenger Pigeon Could Be Resurrected
