Island of the tool users

Cognitive biologist Alice Auersperg of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna discusses what counts as tool use in animals and why some forms are more impressive than others. She describes her lab’s findings in Goffin’s cockatoos, which make tools, build the same tool from different materials, learn tool use from others and recognise the value of tools, along with a tool-using cow, and explores why certain species use tools and why so many tool users live on islands, comparing birds with primates and captive with wild animals.