Australia’s palm cockatoos are well-known for their unique love of drumming, but they don't just have great rhythm - they also each have their own sense of style when it comes to crafting their tools, a new study from The Australian National University (ANU) has found. The male palm cockatoos, the animal kingdom's match for Ringo Starr or Phil Collins, craft their own drum
Ringo Starr of the bird world heading for extinction
16 December 2020
New research from The Australian National University (ANU) shows palm cockatoos, renowned for their human-like musical drumming behaviour, are threatened with extinction.
According to co-author Professor Rob Heinsohn, the animal kingdom s match for Ringo Starr or Phil Collins is facing rapidly declining population numbers. These shy and elusive birds, iconic to Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, fashion thick drum sticks from branches, grip them with their feet and bang them rhythmically on the tree trunk, all the while displaying to females, Professor Heinsohn said. Sadly, palm cockatoos have one of the slowest breeding rates of any bird, and our study shows the population is not producing enough young to replace the birds that die.