In a First, Scientists Film a Puffin Scratching Itself With a Stick

[Judi Lynn]

Behold the first evidence of tool use in seabirds



Researchers now have video evidence that Atlantic puffins can use sticks as tools to scratch their backs. (Public domain)

By Katherine J. Wu
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
DECEMBER 31, 2019

What’s a puffin to do with an itchy back and a short little beak? Grab a stick, a new study suggests.

For the first time, a team of researchers has documented the seabirds using tools, as shown in a video of a puffin rubbing at its feathers with a small twig, as Ben Guarino reports for the Washington Post. Though humans have been wielding objects external to their bodies for practical purposes for millions of years, fewer than one percent of Earth’s other species do the same. The new study, published yesterday in the journal PNAS, appears to grant puffins membership to this exclusive club of tool-savvy animals.

Only two puffins have been observed exhibiting the stick-scratching behavior so far though—and just one was captured on camera. But the video makes them the first known tool-using seabirds, and the only example of a bird scratching itself with a tool in the wild, reports Jonathan Lambert for Science News.

University of Oxford ecologist Annette L. Fayet spotted the first puffin in 2014 on a remote island off the coast of Wales. Though she quickly scrawled a note about the resourceful seabird, which had itched its back with a stick while bobbing in the seawater beneath a cliff, Fayet didn’t snap any photographic evidence. Then, four years later, one of Fayet’s motion-sensor cameras on Grimsey Island in Iceland—more than 1,000 miles away—captured another puffin giving its chest feathers the same treatment.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-scientists-film-puffin-scratching-its-back-stick-180973883/

[LuckyLib]

1. Stunning photos! Thanks for posting!

[Judi Lynn]

5. Amazing little faces! Almost too interesting to be real! Thank you. n/t

[lillypaddle]

2. Beautiful and exotic birds

Thanks!

[Judi Lynn]

6. I can never get tired of seeing Puffins! Thank you. n/t

[Karadeniz]

3. I love puffins...so cute! After all we're learning, we're going to have to change the

Definition of "bird brain."

[Judi Lynn]

7. So glad someone has started caring enough to study these little guys. n/t

[GETPLANING]

4. Some birds are very smart

[Judi Lynn]

8. It really took a long time before there were scientists who treated animals with seriousness.

It makes far more sense to imagine there's a lot of intelligence beyond some of the human race!

[wendyb-NC]

9. What colorful, wonderful creatures.

[PatrickforO]

10. Puffins are seriously cool birds. n/t