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Wild Cockatoos Learn Which Snacks Are Safe to Eat by Copying Their Friends, New Research Suggests
Key takeaways
- Animals like dolphins, chimpanzees and meerkats are all known to learn to forage or use tools by observing their friends, a phenomenon called social learning.
- Birds living in urban environments constantly come across new foods.
- That comes with risks: Feasting on the wrong items could make the animals sick, give them parasites or lead to other bad outcomes.
Julia Penndorf Copycats are everywhere in nature. Animals like dolphins, chimpanzees and meerkats are all known to learn to forage or use tools by observing their friends, a phenomenon called social learning. It turns out that wild cockatoos in Australia also figure out which potential snacks are safe to eat by copying their peers, researchers report April 30 in the journal PLOS Biology.
Birds living in urban environments constantly come across new foods. “The big issue with urban birds is, they kind of eat everything,” says study co-author Julia Penndorf, a behavioral ecologist now at the University of Exeter in England, to Kate Golembiewski at the New York Times.
That comes with risks: Feasting on the wrong items could make the animals sick, give them parasites or lead to other bad outcomes.