Birds like Goffin's cockatoos apparently can also create tools, and scientists suggest that this species could be considered as bird genius. This discovery reveals new insight into the evolution of toolmaking in birds which was once thought to be a unique behavior in primates and humans.

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Goffin's cockatoos can apparently cut to form a tool using their beaks under laboratory conditions. They use a difficult material to manipulate like a sheet of cardboard while attempting to obtain a hard to reach nut.

Past studies have revealed that Goffin's cockatoos are smarter than average birds after a cockatoo named Figaro tore off a long splinter from a piece of wood to reach a nut.

According to Alice Auersperg of the University of Vienna in Austria, there was skepticism about whether the elongated shaped tool was intentionally shaped by the cockatoos. It could be considered as an accident that the bird may have bitten the wood out of sheer frustration and ended up with longer wood pieces as tools.

Wood naturally tears into a nut retrieving tool and scientists in this new study set out to determine whether the cockatoos deliberately know how to shape these tools or just stumbled upon a material and method to make a tool.

In this new study, researchers from the University of Vienna and the University of Oxford observed four male cockatoos including Figaro. Each bird had 10 minutes to figure out how to shape a long, thin tool from a specific material like a twig, wood and cardboard, and then use this tool to retrieve a cashew nut.

All of the four birds were quick to fashion an effective tool from the twig. Three of the birds were also able to tear long splinters from the wood. However, only two birds including Figaro were able to make a long tool from the cardboard since this material does not naturally tear into long strips.

Scientists say the fact that Goffin's cockatoos are not especially known to use tools in the wild now makes this avian behavior remarkable.

New Caledonian crows are also known to make tools, and they have gained a global status as bird geniuses.

This new study was published in the journal, Biology Letters.