The great tit (Parus major) shows consistent individual variation in problem solving abilities. Photo uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Luc Viatour.

Older studies have shown that some animals in nature show an impressive ability to solve problems right from the jumping spider who solves complicated geometrical problems to ambush its prey to the chimpanzees that modify sticks to scoop out termites. Birds seem particularly ingenious with the Caledonian crow as virtual Albert Einsteins with their ability to modify wires into hooks to lift food out of small buckets. However, even more mundane birds, such as the great tit, show innovative foraging behaviour. The great tit for instance learned how to open milk bottles at the time when they were placed in front of houses in the mornings.

Researchers from the University of Oxford have studied the individual variation in problem solving ability of more than 600 great tits from a British population. The birds were caught in the wild and kept in individual cages in the laboratory. Birds were tested for several seasons on two problems. In one they had to remove a lever from a tube to release a food reward and in the other they had to pull out food from a tube with a string attached to the food. In addition the birds were also tested for their fear of new things by placing unknown objects near to their food and see how long it took them to start feeding and for their effort in an exploration trial, where they were released into a previously unknown room.

The study found that in general half the birds solved the problems, but that some birds were consistently good at solving both tasks quickly across seasons whereas others could not solve either of the two. This variation in problem solving ability was not related to fear of new things or to exploration effort or to body condition, but was weakly related to the age of the bird.

It is not known what consequences this variance in cognitive abilities has in nature, but the researchers speculate that the best problem solvers may have an advantage in years with low food availability. 

Source:
 Cole E.F., Cram, D. L., Quinn, J. L. (2011). Individual variation in spontaneous problem-solving performance among wild great tits. Animal Behaviour 81: 491-498.

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