Island of the tool users

Tool use is rare in the animal kingdom—but maybe not as rare as we once thought. Since Jane Goodall famously observed a chimpanzee fishing for termites, many new examples of animals using tools have come to light. Birds using sticks to forage for grubs. Sea otters using rocks to smash open mussels. Digger wasps using stones to close off their burrows. But as these examples mount, so do the scientific questions. What is tool use, really? What different forms does it take? Does it always imply a high degree of intelligence? And perhaps the biggest question of all: Why do some creatures use tools while so many others don't?

My guest today is Dr. Alice Auersperg. Alice is a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. She and her lab study innovation, technical cognition, and tool use in animals—especially in a species of parrot known as the Goffin's cockatoo.

Here, Alice and I talk about her lab's recent work with a certain remarkable cow. We discuss the wide variation in definitions of tool use across studies, and why some kinds of tool use are perhaps more impressive than others. We walk through some of her lab's most striking findings about tool use in the Goffin's cockatoo: for example, the finding that these birds don't just use tools but also make them—and can make the same tool out of different materials; the finding that they learn to use tools from others; and the finding that they recognize in some way the value of tools. We dig into some of Alice's ideas about the big picture—why certain species use tools, and why so many tool users seem to live on islands. Along the way, Alice and I talk about whether tool use in birds is fundamentally different from tool use in primates; we talk about play and boldness; the allure of the sea mango; intrinsic motivation to combine objects; why tool use differs in captivity, at least in Great Apes; and why Goffin's cockatoos like to dunk their noodles in blueberry soy yogurt.

Before we get to it, a brief announcement. We've been steadily expanding the ways you can engage with us. We recently revived our newsletter, in the form of a Substack. And our episodes are now up on YouTube (albeit in audio-only format, for the time being). And of course you can still find us on Spotify, LinkedIn, and on Bluesky. You are warmly encouraged to subscribe to us or follow us on any and all of these channels. And maybe this goes without saying but we do like hearing from you—so please do leave us a comment!

Alright friends, without further ado, on to my interview with Dr. Alice Auersperg. Enjoy!

Notes

3:30 – The recent study by Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró and Dr. Auersperg on Veronika the cow's flexible tool use; a video about the findings. Dr. Auersperg's book on innovation in animals (in German).

9:30 – We discussed gifted word-learning dogs in a recent episode.

11:00 – A paper on tool use in digger wasps. A paper on "anting" in birds. A paper on macaques' use of human hair as dental floss.

18:00 – The chapter by Fragaszy and Mangalam in which the concept of "tooling" was introduced. For a discussion of this framework by Dr. Auersperg and colleagues, see here.

23:00 – A recent discussion by Jen Colbourne and Dr. Auersperg, which touches on the (somewhat outdated) idea that avian and primate tool use are quite different.

25:00 – For more on tool use in New Caledonian crows, see our (much) earlier episode with Alex Taylor.

30:00 – An example of Dr. Auersperg's early work with kea.

34:00 – The study by Dr. Auersperg and team describing the innovation of tool use by the cockatoo named Figaro.

38:00 – A follow-up study on social learning of tool use. A follow-up study showing that Goffin's cockatoos can make the same tool from different materials (video abstract).

47:00 – A study showing that Goffin's cockatoos will (learn to) safekeep their tools.

50:00 – The study from Dr. Auersperg's lab documenting the use of "tool sets" in wild Goffin's cockatoos (video abstract).

58:00 – For more on the origins and drivers of tool use across species, see this recent discussion by Jen Colbourne and Dr. Auersperg.

1:02:00 – A paper by Jean-Baptiste Leca and a colleague about object play and its relation to tool use.

1:04:00 – A paper discussing how tool use differs in captivity in primates.

1:05:00 – The study of noodle flavoring behavior in Goffin's cockatoos by Jeroen Stephan Zewald and Dr. Auersperg (video abstract).

1:09:00 – For an initial discussion of island ecology and its effects on tool use, by Dr. Auersperg and a colleague, see here. Dr. Auersperg's fuller treatment of the island effect remains to be published.

1:19:00 – A study of tool use in sea otters.

1:22:00 – The book Delicious by Rob Dunn (former guest) and Monica Sanchez.

Recommendations

A Bird's IQ, by Louis Lefebvre

Animal Tool Behavior, by Robert W. Shumaker, Kristine R. Walkup, & Benjamin Beck

'Tooling,' by Dorothy Fragaszy & Madhur Mangalam

Tile art credit: Photo by Alice Auersperg

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd.

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