

Parrot in captivity manufactures tools, something not seen in the wild - glymor
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/11/parrot-in-captivity-manufactures-tools-something-not-seen-in-the-wild/

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mark_l_watson
I have owned a small Myers Parrot for about ten years.

He is very clever in understanding his environment. Once he raised one wing
over his head and lowered the other wing to make his shoulders narrow enough
to walk between two obstacles. He also has a strange desire to explore dark
closets - odd since he has poor night vision.

I advise against anyone buying a Parrot unless they have a lot of free time. A
Parrot will thrive in captivity if he has a lot (a lot!) of attention,
otherwise Parrots in captivity will be miserable. For example, my wife and I
need to keep our bird in the same room where we are hanging out - it does not
do at all to leave a Parrot by themselves and we only do so when we go out to
some social event. When we travel I hire a bird specialist to care for him. I
have mostly been retired for a long time, so he is a good pet for me.

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miahi
I find the "social" needs of animals very interesting. I own a rabbit and most
of the time he doesn't like petting and will run if you want to catch him, but
if you leave the room he will follow you and go to sleep in a hard to reach
corner.

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kriro
What I'd be interested in would be the question if he hides his tool or what
happens to the tool after he gets the nut. Is there any sort of reuse or does
he build a new tool each time.

Would he recognize premade tools, maybe pick the best one from a collection of
tools present?

There's also some potential in seeing if birds exibit certain types of
economic behaviour. If it would be somewhat tedious to collect two nuts per
day and he could live off one, would he save some nuts to build a more complex
tool (requireing a day+ of build time) that would allow him to harvest a
"free" nut each day etc.

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oneandoneis2
Behold the creative powers of boredom!

The life of parrots in the wild is too eventful for them to bother with making
tools :)

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nivla
or in other words necessity is the mother of invention.

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brini
Or, more specifically in this case, _captivity_ is the mother of invention.
This reminds me of a video I saw recently about the inventions of prison
inmates.

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lancefisher
Somewhat related is the crow machine. It trains crows to collect and deposit
money in exchange for a treat: <http://www.josh.is/crow-machine/>

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grecy
That's awesome. Thanks.

Here in The Yukon we have lots and lots of enormous ravens that hang around
and generally cause trouble (getting into trash, etc.). While out moose
hunting they were following our canoe and making all kinds of noise when we
were trying to be quiet.

I was wondering if it would be possible to train one to seek out moose, and
land in a tree above them, so we could spot the moose (they are very hard to
spot sitting on the side of a river in long grass).

This gives me hope.

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tathagatadg
Before it was only the chimps and other apes, and now dolphins, then the
parrots ... we have to step up our game people! Next thing you know they are
submitting pull requests ...

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nodata
Interesting that the other parrot learnt by copying the first parrot, not buy
independently coming up with the idea itself.

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drharris
Interesting, but not very surprising. A very small percentage of people come
up with genuinely new ideas. A slightly larger percentage synthesize those
ideas into other ideas. About half the remaining can learn those ideas, and
the other half stares into the abyss of natural selection.

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hughlomas
My favorite example of tool use in birds is this video
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYZnsO2ZgWo> of a crow that actually bends a
piece of wire to form a hook. There are some details about it here:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0808_020808_...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0808_020808_crow.html)

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mladenkovacevic
I don't feel like opening up that video now but I believe it is from a
documentary that also showed that crows are capable of grabbing one tool (a
short stick) in order to reach ANOTHER tool (a longer stick) which finally
helped the crow reach the food. They also showed how crows are able to
remember faces and also transfer the knowledge of which face to be wary of to
their young. Really fascinating stuff.

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pfortuny
What I wonder is: why is this so relevant if birds have been building nests
for quite a while yet? I do not get the great difference... And please do not
mention the 'tool' word: a nest is something MUCH more complicated and
abstract than a tool.

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driverdan
Unfortunately I don't have sources to cite or know enough about the topic to
explain it eloquently but I know you're wrong. Tool use is far more abstract
and requires much more intelligence. The animal has to recognize and
understand the problem at hand, the fact that they can create a tool, and then
the method of using that tool. Nesting is an evolutionary trait that has
existed for a long time.

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pfortuny
Depends on what you call 'intelligence': making a home for living is more
intelligent than just picking a stone for playing, is it not?

Building for the future (you know, you do not build a nest with a couple of
straws) means projecting oneself in the future: that is intelligence for me.

'I know you're wrong' is quite strong.

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nsns
Ever heard of Anthropocentrism? Why would tool use be confined to humans? When
a baby (or a cub) learns to control his/her eye muscles, or her/his hands;
when a bird builds a nest, it's tool use. Tool use is simply an extension of
learning how to use our bodily organs, nothing special about it, all living
creatures do that.

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trafficlight
Tool use is very rare. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_animals>

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ISL
Coolest thing on HN in at least a week. Thanks!

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sayYaeah
I'd hire him.

