There's no stopping these birds. After a lone Goffin cockatoo figured out how to make and use a simple tool, others have learned the same trick by watching him. It's more evidence that the species is unusually innovative. In 2012, Alice Auersperg at the University of Vienna in Austria and her colleagues saw a captive male Goffin cockatoo (Cacatua goffiniana) called Figaro use a stick to try and retrieve a pebble. So they presented him with a nut that was just out of reach beyond the bars of his cage and a large piece of wood. Figaro bit a large splinter out of the wood and used it to rake in the nut.
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