Cockatoo shows tool-making skills

LONDON. November 7. KAZINFORM A captive-bred Goffin's cockatoo has surprised researchers by spontaneously making and using "tools" to reach food.

photo: QAZINFORM

The species is not known to use tools in the wild.

Researchers in Austria recorded the cockatoo - named Figaro - repeatedly breaking off splinters from a wooden beam and using them to reach nuts on the other side of his wire enclosure.

The team believe Figaro's feat is the first recorded instance of tool-making among parrots, BBC informs.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, was carried out at an aviary near Vienna by scientists from the University of Oxford; the University of Vienna and the Max-Planck-Institute for Ornithology in Germany.

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