Bruce is a parrot that lives on a reserve in New Zealand and is only half beaked. It is a New Zealand kea ( Nestor notabilis ), an endangered species that has never been seen using a grooming tool. Bruce is the first to do it and his upper jaw is missing .
” Among birds, the use of self-care tools is apparently rare in nature , despite several anecdotal reports of this behavior in captive parrots,” the researchers write in a paper published in Scientific Reports . “Here, we show that Bruce, a disabled parrot lacking his upper jaw, deliberately uses pebbles to groom himself.”
Grooming in birds is more important than we think. When grooming, these animals remove dust, dirt, and parasites from their feathers . They also align them so that they are insulating, waterproof and have good aerodynamics. Lastly, looking good will attract potential mates to mate with.
The Bruce parrot was found in 2013 very injured and without the upper half of its beak. Her caregivers don’t know exactly what happened to her, but they believe she fell into a pest trap. As part of the beak is missing, which is what birds use to groom themselves, the logical thing would have been for the animal to show a disheveled appearance, as it would not be able to “groom itself” correctly. However, Bruce has adapted incredibly well to life without a top beak, instead using a series of pebble-like tools between the bottom beak and his tongue .
“That an individual innovates in the use of tools in response to their disability shows great flexibility in their intelligence . They are capable of adapting and flexibly solving new problems that arise,” says one of the authors of the study, the cognitive researcher of animals Amalia Basto.
“The pebbles he picked up were different from those other kea scooped up, they were always of a certain size. This points to an intentional act: finding a way to groom himself without the upper half of his beak.”
It was in 2019 that Bruce’s caretakers realized his ability. “In over 90% of the cases where Bruce picked up a pebble, then used it to groom himself; in 95% of the cases Bruce dropped a pebble, he retrieved this pebble, or replaced it, to resume grooming” , writes the team.
“Bruce selected pebbles of a specific size for grooming rather than randomly sampling available pebbles in his environment; no other Kea in his environment used pebbles for grooming.”
Other animals that use tools for different purposes are crows, which use sticks and stones; the cockatoos, who make their own tools and the female octopus, who throw shells and silt at the males when they do not want them to come to court them.
Fuente: Bastos, APM, Horváth, K., Webb, JL et al. Self-care tooling innovation in a disabled kea (Nestor notable). Sci Rep 11, 18035 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97086-w
