Tool use and Manufacture in the Goffin’s cockatoo

  • Date: Jan 24, 2023
  • Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Alice Auersperg
  • Alice Auersperg is an Associated Professor heading the Goffin Lab at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, interested in the evolution of play behaviour, innovation, physical cognition and tool use.
  • Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
  • Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
  • Contact: all.science@ab.mpg.de
Tool use and Manufacture in the Goffin’s cockatoo
Our research started with an accidental observation of an individual tool innovation in an aviary in Austria. This prompted us to study the triggers, social transmission, and mechanisms underlying tool innovation abilities in this species well over the past decade. I will present selective examples of our research in Austria as well as in the Goffin’s natural habitat, the Tanimbar archipelago in Indonesia, and discuss the meaning of our findings in a comparative framework The Goffin's cockatoo is not a population-wide tool user and lacks traits that are usually associated to the onset of tool use in birds. Nevertheless, it shows highly adaptable extractive foraging techniques, a psychological drive to combine objects, the ability to instantly memorize profitable motor sequences and the ability to innovate and socially transmit tool use and manufacture in the lab as well as in the field.

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