Do n’t be fool by their precious snoot and innocent waddle – puffins may be smarter than they first let on .
Researchers have capture first - of - a - kind footage of puffins using small sprig to rub their backs and flick their chests , marking the first fourth dimension a seabird has ever been documented using a tool .
Annette Fayet , a zoologist from the University of Oxford in the UK , first witnessed this behavior in June 2012 while observe Atlantic puffin living on Skomer Island off the coast of Wales , as reported in the journalPNAS .
This impressive effort was not a one - off , either . In July 2018 , Fayet and her team managed to charm the same behavior on video using motion - set off tv camera deployed near puffin nests on Grimsey Island in Iceland .
Although it ’s not clear why the puffin coddle in this demeanour , the team speculates it ’s either to dislodge tick or to only relieve an scabies .
" Using sticks is common across puppet - using taxa , but mostly in a foraging context to extract nutrient from a caries , " the team explain in theirpaper . " puffin only catch prey underwater , and they were not interact with other puffins or poke into objects with the stick .
" As such , they were most likely hire in organic structure fear . "
Once thought to be a skill possessed only by humans , creature usehas since been document in a wide of the mark raiment of animal specie . It ’s most often consort with our primate cousins such asgorillas , orangutans , and chimpanzees , but it ’s also been run across inpigs , dolphins , Pisces the Fishes , and a long lean of otherunexpected mintage , like emmet . Manyspecies of monkeysand chimpanzees have entered the stone historic period , somethousands of years ago . Crows , parrots , and certain other species of bird are known to be especially skilled when it comes to tool use . Australian birds of prey haveharnessed the use of fire , anda 2018 studyeven establish New Caledonian Crow can craft their own puppet by fuse several different self-governing parts .
Until now , seabirds were not known to use instrument , nor were they typically associated with displays of intelligence . However , thanks to the itching efforts of these puffins , they can link the select club of tool substance abuser .
“ As such , seafowl ’ cognitive capacities may have been substantially undervalue , ” the study authors compose . “The fact that to date stamp the only other razz seen scratching with a stick are parrot , fertile peter users and job solvers , plunk for this guess . ”
