Posted on 01/26/2004 8:36:46 AM PST by aculeus
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.
The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.
He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.
N'kisi's remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine.
N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world.
He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.
One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.
When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera." Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication".
In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards.
Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance.
Captives' frustrations
This was despite the researchers discounting responses like "What ya doing on the phone?" when N'kisi saw a card of a man with a telephone, and "Can I give you a hug?" with one of a couple embracing.
Professor Donald Broom, of the University of Cambridge's School of Veterinary Medicine, said: "The more we look at the cognitive abilities of animals, the more advanced they appear, and the biggest leap of all has been with parrots."
Alison Hales, of the World Parrot Trust, told BBC News Online: "N'kisi's amazing vocabulary and sense of humour should make everyone who has a pet parrot consider whether they are meeting its needs.
"They may not be able to ask directly, but parrots are long-lived, and a bit of research now could mean an improved quality of life for years." © BBC MMIV
Yet another member of the animal world proves its ntelligence is superior to democRATs.
Crows at the North Alabama course we often played had grown accustomed to raiding food from golf carts that pick up snacks at the turn. When the golfers would step over to the tees or the greens, the crows would swoop in and lift a snack, packaging and all! One of my golfing buddies had a smart boxer dog he would bring along to the course, that sat dutifully in the cart throughout an entire round, except when led to the trees to potty. The crows made quick work of the 'guard dog' though ... one brave crow would swoop down at the dog from the side of the cart and draw the animal away from the cart while the others would clean out the snacks!
Get out... ROTFWL
What is ROTFWL?
Tia
Hmmmm....now you're giving me ideas. If we take the DNA of an African Gray and mix it with the DNA of a democRAT, will we get a smarter democRAT or just a whining bird that votes multiple times?
Great one!
"You are not alone!"
/putting away the Agent Mulder Voice!/
Tia
Has he demanded his freedom and reparations for years of slavery?
Tia
MM
African Greys are amazing -- while most large parrots can learn to speak and have surprisingly large vocabularies, most talk with that stereotypical "parrot" voice. But African Greys are perfect mimics -- you'd swear they were feathered tape recorders. They can not only reproduce people's specific voices so well that they can fool the person's spouse, but they can do amazingly accurate renditions of almost any other sound as well, like dogs barking, cats meowing, door hinges sqeaking, phones ringing, videogame sounds, dog toy squeakers, power tools, knocking on doors (wood or metal), the distinctive sound of a squirt bottle... The list is endless.
Furthermore, as lab research subjects they have indicated clear ability to count, categorize by shape/color/material/arrangement, answer and ask specific questions, and so on: "THAT DAMN BIRD" A Talk with Dr. Irene Pepperberg.
LOL -- while looking up links for this post, I ran across a page with this anecdote about Alex, the original research subject:
A parrot after my own heart
Last Sunday, I spent a beautiful fall afternoon walking around Valley Forge National Historical Park with my seven-year-old son Mac and Dick Oehrle, whom I've known since we were undergraduates together.
Dick's daughter once worked as a research assistent for Irene Pepperberg at the University of Arizona. Dick relayed this story about the language skills of Alex the African Grey Parrot.
It seems that Cheerios cereal was a favorite treat among the parrots in the lab. At a certain point, someone went to a new local health food store, and brought back some healthy organic O-shaped whole-grain cereal. Alex tried a mouthful, spit it out, looked at the provider, and said, very distinctly:
"Wood."
Of course, what you're reading is my re-telling of Dick's re-telling of his daughter's story, which itself might have been second hand. But still.
But then there are the annoying things -- mimicing the sounds of car alarms, microwave oven beeps, telephone and fax rings, the toaster squeaking on the countertop (although at a much higher decibel. .....an eardrum-busting noise). etc.
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