Feathered friends: study shows 'selfless' parrots helping peers

[Judi Lynn]

African grey parrots help other birds get food despite no benefit to themselves, a behaviour only previously seen in apes

Nicola Davis
@NicolaKSDavis
Thu 9 Jan 2020 11.00 ESTLast modified on Thu 9 Jan 2020 11.29 EST

African grey parrots help their peers complete tasks despite no immediate benefit to themselves, researchers have found, in the first study to show that birds display such apparently “selfless” behaviour.

While other prosocial behaviours have been seen in birds, the team say helping peers to achieve a goal, so-called “instrumental helping”, has only previously been shown outside of humans in orangutans and bonobos.

Prof Désirée Brucks, a co-author of the paper from Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, said it was an obvious choice to try an experiment with parrots.

“Parrots and corvids, crows and ravens, are really known for being the brightest birds around, they are often referred to as ‘feathered apes’ and they have been tested in many studies on problem solving or word learning,” she said.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/09/feathered-friends-study-shows-selfless-parrots-helping-peers