Official News page 5

REAL LIFE NEWS: PARROTS WORK TOGETHER

by Hazed

A while ago, I told you how elephants work together to get food. Now comes news that parrots co-operate, too.

Scientists came up with a series of tasks for African grey parrots, which showed that the birds understand how to work together. The team at a research center in Paris found that some of the birds preferred to work together, while others liked to go it alone.

The test they used was the same one used for the elephants - just scaled down to bird-sized. It requires two parrots to pull on a string at the same time in order to move a tray towards them. The tray contains some food. Just like the elephants, the parrots understood that the task required a partner, and waited for a second bird to come and help.

But it gets more interesting. As well as the basic cooperative task, the scientists came up with something that required different birds to perform different actions. One parrot had to climb up onto a perch in order to release the tray, then a second parrot could pull it. The parrots were able to carry out these complementary actions to get the reward.

You can read more about the individual parrots involved in this study, and their responses to the tests, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/12913981.

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