Puffins
Researchers observed puffins using tools for the first time ever in 2018, as the seabirds grabbed sticks to scratch themselves. Video taken in the North Atlantic showed one adorable puffin picking up a short stick with its bill and moving it about its chest, in what appeared to be a scratching motion. The scientists believe they were either relieving an itch or trying to remove ticks. While other birds, particularly crows and parrots, are well known to use tools, that same isn’t true for birds like puffins. “Seabirds’ cognitive capacities may have been considerably underestimated,” the team wrote in their study.
