Smart animals: parrots amazingly bright (Animals)

by David Turell , Monday, January 29, 2024, 17:31 (89 days ago) @ David Turell

A review:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/parrot-intelligence-smart-brain-behavior

"Tool use is just one of parrots’ many talents. The birds are famous for emulating, and perhaps sometimes even understanding, human speech. Some species can also solve complex puzzles, like how to invade a secured trash bin, or practice self-control. Such abilities, on par with some primates, have earned parrots a place alongside members of the crow family as the “feathered apes.”

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"Parrots’ most well-known talent is their affinity for spoken words. Proficiency varies among species, but African grays (Psittacus erithacus) are particularly good at picking up words and speaking clearly, Pepperberg says.

"These parrots can repeat up to 600 different words, researchers reported in 2022 in Scientific Reports. While some parrots simply mimic words, it is possible to train birds such as Alex, who had a vocabulary of more than 100 words, to communicate with people.

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"Overall, 11 of the nearly 400 parrot species, or about 3 percent, have been documented in scientific studies using tools. Crowdsourcing from YouTube videos, Bastos and colleagues uncovered 17 more tool-using species, bringing the total to 28. After plotting the known tool users onto an evolutionary tree, the team estimates that 11 to 17 percent of parrot species may use tools.

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"By the early 2000s, scientists had discovered that, in fact, parts of the avian brain are akin to the mammalian neocortex, the largest part of the cerebral cortex. Subsequent work has found that, compared with mammals, avian brains have “a higher total number of neurons for the same amount of skull space,” says neurobiologist and geneticist Erich Jarvis of Rockefeller University in New York City.

"Parrot brains are especially densely packed. Some species even have more neurons than some large-brained primates. This density may facilitate the formation of brain circuits not found in other animals, Jarvis says.

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"Human brains transfer information from the cerebral cortex to the cerebellum — a “little brain” at the back of the skull that in part coordinates movement — through clusters of neurons known as the pontine nuclei. This connection is crucial for cognitive functions like learning how to talk or making tools.

"In birds, the similar pathway connects the avian equivalent of the neocortex to the cerebellum, Gutiérrez-Ibáñez and colleagues reported in 2018 in Scientific Reports. In addition to the pontine nuclei, birds shunt information through a second conduit, the SpM. It’s unclear what info gets transmitted via the SpM, Gutiérrez-Ibáñez says. But among birds, the parrot SpM is particularly large in size — a tantalizing hint that it may contribute to parrot intelligence.

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"Parrots have acquired duplicate copies of various genes, some of which are known to be important for brain development and speech in people, says Mello, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. More copies could mean more ability. But parrot smarts may come down to how genes in the brain are regulated in addition to gaining more or new genes. Unlike other studied birds, parrots have genetic mutations in regions of DNA that provide instructions to switch genes on or off, perhaps to activate certain genes crucial for brain function and cognition.

"This is reminiscent of humans, Mello says. We have mutations in these same gene regulators while other apes don’t. In us, the changes allow the regulators to kick-start genes related to growing big forebrains, a region important for complex cognition. If the same is true in parrots, it could point to a shared evolutionary process for humanlike intelligence.

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"A large brain relative to body size is one indication, albeit imperfect, that an animal might be intelligent. Parrots, as well as members of the crow family, ended up with some of the largest brains of any birds.

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"It’s also possible that scientists are just missing the cognitive feats of wild parrots. It’s difficult to get wild parrot studies off the ground because the birds can fly away, and researchers can’t easily follow. (New Zealand’s kākāpō, the only flightless parrot, is the exception.) “Researching these highly mobile animals is a challenge in the wild.'”

Comment: I had to condense a huge article. This is far more than 'basal cognition' since it involves real brains.