3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue 1 & 2 Jan - Apr 2 3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue | Page 110

ADVENTURE & WILDLIFE
banana-pellet and the other with the
apple and the orangutans had to
choose between the two tools
they were still able to make
profitable decisions by
choosing the tool that
enabled
them
to
operate the appara-
tus with the favorite
food.”
functional for the respective apparatus,”
explains Isabelle Laumer who conducted
the experiment. “However, when the
orangutans could choose between the
apple-piece and a tool they chose the
tool but only if it worked for the available
apparatus: For example when the stick
and the likeable food was available
but the apes faced the ball-apparatus
baited with the favourite banana-pellet,
they chose the apple-piece over the non-
functional tool. However when the
stick-apparatus with the banana-pellet
inside was available they chose the
stick-tool
over
the
immediate
apple-piece,” she further explains.
“In a final task, that required the
orangutans to simultaneously focus on
the two apparatuses, one baited with the
110
These
results
are similar to
findings
in
Gofffin cocka-
toos that have
been previously
tested in the
same
task.
“Similar
to
the apes, the
c o c k a t o o s
could
overcome
i m m e d i a t e
impulses in favor of
future
gains
even
if this implied tool
use. “The birds were
confronted with the choice
between a tool to retrieve an
out-of-reach food item and an
immediate reward. We found that
they, similar to the apes, were highly
sensible
to
the
quality
of
the
immediate relative to the out-of-reach
reward at the same time as to
whether the available tool would
actually work with the task at hand,”
explains Alice Auersperg, the head
of the Goffin Lab in Austria. She
continues: “Again, this suggests that
similar cognitive abilities can evolve
independently
in
distantly
related
species.”Nevertheless the cockatoos
did reach their limit at the very last task
in which both apparatuses baited with
both possible food qualities and both
tools were available at the same time.”
“Optimality
models
suggest
that
orangutans
should
flexibly
adapt
their
foraging
decisions
depending on the availability of high
Vol 4 | Issue 2 |Mar - Apr 2019