Stunned by parrot's ability to play golf

An interesting video shows a Goffin cockatoo learning how to master a wooden stick to push a marble into a hole.

Among animals, even higher animals (except humans) the mastery of tools is quite rare in nature. Most species that can use synthetic tools are primates, with the advantage of hands to easily make and use tools.

However, few people think that a parrot, specifically the cockatoo Goffin, can still master the tool to do what they want, which is to get the marble inside a box.

Alice Auersperg, head of the Goffin Laboratory at the Veterinary University of Vienna, was also surprised to be the first to notice this, through observing Figaro - one of the cockatoos in the laboratory's aviary. experience.

The wooden cage is designed to be closed on all sides, leaving only one side open with a trellis and a small hole for parrots to observe and manipulate. In the posted video, the parrot can be seen using its beak, sucking a ball through a round hole, then using a stick to push the ball into a small hole in the floor like in a game of golf. If you do these things correctly, the parrot will be rewarded by the trainer.

Parrot's mastery of using tools surprised researchers.

The seemingly extremely complicated experiment did not make it difficult for the parrots, when up to 5 out of 11 parrots at the laboratory successfully manipulated it. Among them, Figaro was the only parrot that succeeded on the first attempt.

However, on the second attempt, Figaro surprised the researchers, as it tried to innovate its method to get the ball more efficiently. In the words of Auersperg, "it learned to adapt to the game".

Although Goffin cocks have no problem pushing objects with just a stick, whether they can combine a stick and a ball into one tool is a question that has left researchers wondering.