>So why did the cockatoos gravitate to drinking fountains in the first place, when plenty of other water sources such as puddles and creeks are available? Perhaps they have developed a taste for the purer fountain water, Klump says. Or the elevated fountain perch helps them spot approaching predators such as eagles and falcons.
Of course I understand that in the context of scientific research you can’t just assume, it’s just a bit absurd from the outside.
I mean, it could also not be about taste at all, I'm sure not all animals taste things the same, not even all humans have the same taste it seems, I can't stand fish and I love licorice, many are the opposite :)
Besides, many animals seem to enjoy just "different" things. When I'm out and about with my dogs, they love trying to drink water from puddles, even if I have a portable bowl with fresh water right next to it. Maybe it's more "interesting" or "flavorful"? Who knows...
Would rather drink the water used to clean chicken shit off the deck than anything else
Would die of thirst rather than drink slightly dusty, dog saliva contaminated water from their bowl. That Must Be Clean! Now, human!!
Tell that to my cats. If they got the chance they will always prefer to drink from puddles of muddy rainwater instead of the clean water we give them.
Some species of birds, like cockatoos, like puzzles. They like to figure things out.
As a bird owner, they get bored. They like to play like dogs, but in 3d. They also have musical rhythm.
They are amazing birds, very deserving of the name "Clown of the Mountains".
I was having a burrito on manly wharf a long while back, a seagull just lands on the table and death stares me...i felt uncomfortable and moved, because i know they will try and take my food off me!
Cockatoos are worse and will flip the lid of a wheelie bin if in the mood. Crows will as well if you overfill and the lid is not shut properly.
They are smart!
One group will entertain the tourists (in mountain huts in the back country) by putting on ammusing displays of acrobatics and hijinks
The other team use razor sharp claws and beaks to open thir packs and get to all the interesting stuff inside
We had a galah chewing our hosepipe the other day. I pointed and said "oi!" and the little scamp stopped, straightened up, looked me right in the eye and ... did it again.
Oh and not to forget the kookas. I heard a pop and noise like water a few weeks ago, and ran into our living room. Outside the main window there's that hose reel mounted on the wall that was spraying freely against the glass. A kookaburra had somehow pulled the hozelock end off and was taking a shower.
Snag = sausage.
In their typical speech to people about NOT keeping birds as pets they described some of the birds as "highly curious, the maturity of a human 5 year old, with an intense desire to be destructive".
20 to 40 in the wild.
Good sense of humour though.
Amused by this I mentioned it at a neighborhood BBQ, and was greeted by a chorus of "oh yes, that happens at my place too". The guy holding the BBQ held up his BBQ tools and said: "See, brand new, this is the 3rd set". It was a neighborhood wide protection racket run by one bird.
When he was on the other side of the house in the garage, they’d take fruit from the trees and drop them on the sloping driveway so they rolled down into the garage. Come play old fella.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea#Cognitive_abilities
https://youtu.be/Yj718A7_s4A?si=yaiv4sZiY4xmzK0C. -- Kea doing probabilities and inferring from (biased) experiments
A crab finding itself left-clawed means they fight differently and are generally less successful in fights, thus they live a more asocial life by choice and necessity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasimus_vomeris
Update: see comment below. Studies are not conclusive.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-asymmetric-brain...
The avian pallium is thought to be the analogue structure in birds, evolved separately.
Which is cool! Birds have separately evolved intelligence!
The African grey parrots are fascinating in particular, with their ability to connect words to more abstract concepts like counting.
Squid, octopi, etc have cognitive abilities that sometimes overtake that of "intelligent" mammals or birds. Yet common ancestors are about as far away as is possible in animal kingdom.
(And also please remember this when ordering calamari next time ;)
Edit: I very much enjoyed this bestseller popular science book on invertebrates intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds%3A_The_Octopus%2C_...
Wait are any cephalopods vegan?
So, to answer your question:
> If they're so smart why aren't I on their plate instead?
For the same reason I and grandparent commentor don't eat them: because we know their intelligence. If they were more intelligent that humans, that reasoning would mean they won't eat humans.
Slightly more on topic: humans often show a very narrow world view. In that many humans fail to see that there are other types of "intelligence" for example. We project our own narrow world-view onto others: "Intelligence means, you should eat anything that's less intelligent than you" (very much parafrasing, I know)
A mini brain in each arm, orchestrated by the main brain.
Both octopuses and octopodes are terrible words.
And words are made by us, you cannot tell me what's a word and what isn't.
https://youtu.be/u1TLQUH43Yw?si=L8Ta4RG1Kp8tkHWU
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the narrator, must have said "octopuses" a hundred times, so it's kind of burned into my brain.
All words and grammar rules are made up. Entirely. As in... invented by humans. The laws of physics don't really care.
If lots of people use "octopi" (and they do) and most people understand what it means (which they do) then congrats! It is, in fact, a word. If enough people apply an "i" ending to words then that becomes itself a new grammar rule.
English, just like every other language, also has a ton of unwritten grammar rules as well as spoken word only rules.
In short: octopi is in fact a perfectly cromulent word.
Webster, is that you ? /s
another question that I keep asking myself is: are we seriously overestimating human intelligence all this time?
I sometimes wonder whether we invented AI because we felt lonely in a universe where we - apparently by our own judgement - are the only intelligent beings.
/s
The prevailing wisdom has been that a fully developed cockatoo has roughly the intelligence of a 3 year old.
A 3 year old figuring out how to use a drinking fountain wouldn't be world-breaking science, and I don't think this is either.
We have proven that they don't understand language and can simply mimic sounds. I don't think it's as deep as you are hoping.
Child: wild call
Parent: wild call back
Child: wild call back
Parent: wild call back
Child: wild call back
There are bird species with nuanced dialogue-like calls, but parrots are not him ...
What I love about these is that you can see that the cockatoo clearly knows that it’s playing a game. It doesn’t tip over the cup to get the reward (or just tip over all the cups, which is the easiest solution if you don’t care about the game). It just indicates which cup is the right one.
"learned to operate" is an overstatement. They brute-forced a way to get water sometimes. Lots of animals do that. Mice learn or figure out how to get such water rewards - it's used every day in labs studying the brain
Nature is amazing! (especially rattos! :))
I do hope they don't shit all over the nozzle though.
This is also an unconventional drinking fountain.
Why do you say that?
At least in Australia, drinking fountains ("bubblers"!) are fairly non standardised. I don't recall seeing many with that rubber top, but the rotating release mechanism is pretty common. I'd say press buttons are more common but both are typical.
IOW they "learned" how to drink water, not to use the fountain.
“Every cockatoo exhibited slight variations in its plan of attack. But the general strategy was the same: Each placed one or both of its feet on the fountain’s twist handle, then lowered its weight to twist the handle clockwise and prevent it from springing back up. As the parrots slurped water from the bubbling spout, their sharp beaks often left behind chew marks on the fountain’s rubber top.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianBirds/comments/1kjve1q/su...
>By the early 1960s, news reports highlighted the fact that calling a bubbler a bubbler was the sure sign of being a Milwaukeean.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/green-sheet/2020/02/25/w...
As soon as I saw that comment in the Reddit post, I clicked on the guy's profile to see if they're from Wisconsin. Wasn't obvious at a glance.
He had two, a male and a female.
The male played industriously and was adept at doing all kinds of things, like untying zipties. (my friend added zipties to the cage as a toy). The female never touched any of them.
One day, my friend and his buddy were sitting there, and they mentioned this out loud. "She can't untie these things, I think she is just stupid compared to (the male)"
At which point, the female went over, untied the ziptie, spat it out and walked away. My friend and his buddy sat there open-mouthed.
but thats why I wont ever cage one up.. they clearly intelligent creatures that evolution has designed to be free flying animals. caging them up is beyond cruel.
I sat down at a table, and there was a spray bottle with the condiments, promisingly-labeled "ibis spray". "Great", I thought to myself. "The ibis must hate whatever liquid they put in here". I was expecting maybe soapy water, or a lemon juice solution, or something.
I began eating, and a massive ibis landed next to me, and looked at me, threateningly. I wasn't scared. I held my ground, confidently reaching over to the ibis spray. I knew exactly how to fix this problem.
I aimed the ibis spray at the creature, and pulled the trigger.
What I now believe to be tap water shot out and struck the ibis, who did not even blink as it stared at me menacingly.
"Oh shit", I thought.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-07-23/cockatoos-ope...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-11-12/white-cockatoos...
My family has a rescue Galah, very similar to Sulfur Crested Cockatoos and he is very smart. He knows the right words to use and when, he thinks the cat is called "ps ps ps" so he calls for the cat with ps ps ps, when it passes by. Knows how to say hello/goodnight etc and when. He also knows he can trick some people by looking away when you give him food, so you get closer, then he bites.
His wing was broken as a baby after getting stuck in a thorny bush, that's how we came to have him in case anyone is curious. He can't fly.
LadyCailin•1d ago