Grey parrots are willing to help one another
We know these birds are intelligent, but researchers are now wondering if they’re also altruistic.
THEY CERTAINLY SEEM to be in a new study published in the journal Current Biology at the beginning of this year.
An experiment was set up, whereby two parrots were placed in a partitioned compartment. One parrot could exchange tokens for treats – but only if the other parrot first passed the token to it.
“We found that African greys voluntarily and spontaneously help familiar parrots to achieve a goal, without obvious immediate benefit to themselves,” says study co-author Désirée Brucks from Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.
“The study provides preliminary evidence for prosocial behaviour in grey parrots,” says Dr Irene Pepperberg, who has for many years carried out experiments studying the cognitive and communicative ability of African greys. “The two siblings that had a very close affiliation were the most engaged here, and it will be interesting to follow them as they age and mate with other individuals. The evidence for the other, less-affiliated grey parrots is less convincing.”
In the same experiment, blue-headed macaws did not help each other. James Fair
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Current Biology: bit.ly/30LdxAu