https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tt-ylz34s
Cockato in Sydney, Australia, has learned to use public water fountains by wiping in handles, despite how difficult they are for birds to operate. It seems to be a behavior they copy from each other.
Sulfur-Crested Cockatoos (Cacatua Galerita) Have already learned how to open garbage tray in eastern Sydney, leading to a battle over sense when people come in ways to keep their Binsd and Cockatoos again figuring out how to open them.
After Rangers reported the same type of cockato using drinking water’s fountain in western Sydney, Lucy Aplin at the Australian National University and her colleagues temporarily marked 24 cockatoos representing about a fifth of the local population and filming what happened at several drinking water, or the bubbles Asyy is known in Australia.
Cockato using a drinking water in Sydney
Klump et al. 2025
Over the course of 44 days, Cockato made 525 to use a particularly popular fountain. Of these, 105 WEE was of 17 of the 24 marked birds. This suggests that approx. 70 pr. A hundred of the population of more than 100 birds is sorted to use the fountain, the researchers say.
In natural slides, cockato drinks from ponds or water collected in wooden holes near their roost, but the birds appear to be used to be used the spring waters that are the inside of these sources, says Aplin. “They use it in the morning and in the event, which is that we know that Cockato Basal is making their drink – after they get up and before going to bed.”
The researchers saw questions on more than 10 birds waiting for their trip along a fence of a bubbler, although dominant birds jumped their tail.
Only 41 per Hundreds of observed attempts ended successfully – but drinking from the fountains is no average feat for a bird, Aplin says.
“The birds must coordinate their body in a quite complex way,” she says. “They have to have a foot on the stem of drinking water fountains, and then the handle has been twisted and held down. So the users will twist it with Weir foot. But they have to lean their body to use their weight, they donate, they donate it holds the handle turned.
She believes the users copy the behavior apart after a person or a few individuals figured out how to do it.
“This is a clear example of culture – new behavior that is socially transmitted – which may surprise many people who think culture is a unique human trait,” says Christina Zdenek at the University of Queensland, Australia. “Their ability to innovate to gain access to new food and water resources are among the most impressive across the tree of life.”
Why does Cockato do it? Aplin suggests that it may be that the water tastes better than muddy pond water, or that they feel safer from predators at Thesese Bubblers. Alternatively, it may just be a obscurity driven by Brirds’ thirst for innovation.
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