ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Evidence of tool use in a seabird.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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13 citing papers in PubMed, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brain intrinsic connection patterns underlying tool processing in human adults are present in neonates and not in macaques.NeuroImage · 2022Article
- Viewing the rare through public lenses: insights into dead calf carrying and other thanatological responses in Asian elephants using YouTube videos.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Waterbird solves the string-pull test.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Extending the Reach of Tooling Theory: A Neurocognitive and Phylogenetic Perspective.Topics in cognitive science · 2021Article
- Self-care tooling innovation in a disabled kea (Nestor notabilis).Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Uncertainty in experts' judgments exposes the vulnerability of research reporting anecdotes on animals' cognitive abilities.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Article
- Reply to Auersperg et al.: Puffin tool use is no fluke.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Do puffins use tools?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Tool-using puffins prickle the puzzle of cognitive evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Dog Stick Chewing: An Overlooked Instance of Tool Use?Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- How to Report Anecdotal Observations? A New Approach Based on a Lesson From "Puffin Tool Use".Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Macphail's Null Hypothesis of Vertebrate Intelligence: Insights From Avian Cognition.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Documenting novel cases of tool use in wild animals can inform our understanding of the evolutionary drivers of the behavior's emergence in the natural world. We describe a previously unknown tool-use behavior for wild birds, so far only documented in the wild in primates and elephants. We observed 2 Atlantic puffins at their breeding colonies, one in Wales and the other in Iceland (the latter captured on camera), spontaneously using a small wooden stick to scratch their bodies. The importance of these observations is 3-fold. First, while to date only a single form of body-care-related tool use has been recorded in wild birds (anting), our finding shows that the wild avian tool-use repertoire is wider than previously thought and extends to contexts other than food extraction. Second, we expand the taxonomic breadth of tool use to include another group of birds, seabirds, and a different suborder (Lari). Third, our independent observations span a distance of more than 1,700 km, suggesting that occasional tool use may be widespread in this group, and that seabirds' physical cognition may have been underestimated.
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