A combined study by the scientists from Oxford University, the University of Vienna, and the Max Planck Institute at Seewiesen has revealed that Goffin's cockatoos can learn how to make and use wooden tools from each other.

The study was first of its kind controlled experimental evidence to show the social transmission of tool use in any bird species.

Goffin's cockatoo is a species of Indonesian parrot that is widely known to use tools in the wild. Researchers had observed a captive adult male Goffin's cockatoo named 'Figaro' and found that he sculptured stick tools out of wooden aviary beams so as to use them for raking in nuts that are out of his reach.

The research team used Figaro as a 'role model' to study the fact that whether individual invention could be passed on to other cockatoos in the team or not. In this experiment the first cockatoo group was allowed to observe Figaro skillfully employing a ready-made stick tool, while the other could see what researchers called 'ghost demonstrations'.

'Ghost demonstrations' can be explained as a situation where the other cockatoo group either saw the tools displacing the nuts by themselves, or saw them being controlled by magnets hidden under a table, or in some cases

they saw the nuts moving towards Figaro without his intervention by using magnets to displace the food.

Then both the groups of cockatoo were placed in front of an identical problem where they had a ready-made tool lying on the ground nearby. Researchers found that the copying birds began to refine the technique by changing Figaro's slow raking process to a quick, more efficient, flick.

Professor Alex Kacelnik of Oxford University said, "There is a substantial difference between repeating a teacher's behaviour and emulating his or her achievements while creating one's own methods. The cockatoos seem to emulate and surpass their teacher, which is what all good professors hope for from their best students".