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Bird Tool Use

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

  • 85 Accesses

Synonyms

Causal reasoning; Object manipulation; Physical cognition

Definition

Birds using an unattached object as a means of (better) attaining a goal when their beak or talon is not sufficient.

Introduction

The ability to use and make tools has played a significant role in our notion of human cognitive evolution ever since Darwin proposed that our minds evolved like our bodies. Tool use was seen as one of our defining features, until Jane Goodall discovered that chimpanzees also made and used a variety of different tools. Although Goodall’s observations eventually opened the door to the comparative study of tool use in other primates, otters, rodents, cetaceans, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, and even some invertebrates, the idea that nonhuman animals can use and even make tools has been a bitter pill for some to swallow. Tool use has become so entrenched in our idea of what it means to be human, that its very notion is intimately tied to that of human intelligence; tool use has...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Nathan Emery

Authors
  1. Nathan Emery
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Correspondence to Nathan Emery .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Emery, N. (2016). Bird Tool Use. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3164-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3164-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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