This is fanstastic. Thank you for sharing, Ken!
Best,
Tom
On Sat, 2021-09-11 at 06:04 +0200, Ken Friedman wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> While many articles discuss post-human design, there has been
> relatively little discussion of non-human designers. A current
> article in the New York Times discusses a parrot from New Zealand who
> designed a prosthetic beak.
>
> Bruce Is a Parrot With a Broken Beak. So He Invented a Tool.
>
> By Nicholas Bakalar
>
> "Many animals are known to use tools, but a bird named Bruce may be
> one of the most ingenious nonhuman tool inventors of all: He is a
> disabled parrot who has designed and uses his own prosthetic beak.
>
> "Bruce is a kea, a species of parrot found only in New Zealand. He is
> about 9 years old, and when wildlife researchers found him as a baby,
> he was missing his upper beak, probably because it had been caught in
> a trap made for rats and other invasive mammals the country was
> trying to eliminate. This is a severe disability, as kea use their
> dramatically long and curved upper beaks for preening their feathers
> to get rid of parasites and to remove dirt and grime.
>
> "But Bruce found a solution: He has taught himself to pick up pebbles
> of just the right size, hold them between his tongue and his lower
> beak, and comb through his plumage with the tip of the stone. Other
> animals use tools, but Bruce’s invention of his own prosthetic is
> unique.”
>
> Full article at:
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/science/kea-beak-tools.html
>
> The peer-reviewed report on the parrot is published open access in
> the journal Scientific Reports from the Nature group
>
> Bastos, Amalia P. M., Kata Horváth, Jonathan L Webb, Patrick M Wood,
> and Alex H Taylor. 2021 “Self-care tooling innovation in a disabled
> kea (Nestor notabilis)." Scientific Reports 11, 18035 (2021). DOI:
> https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97086-w
>
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97086-w
>
> Ken Friedman
>
> --
>
>
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