Polly Wanna Get Home: Here's My Address

(NEWSER) - Yes, it's an actual study: Parrots can dance. Really and truly dance. A painstaking review of lab video—and YouTube—revealed that the birds have rhythm, the Boston Globe reports. Frame-by-frame analysis of birds’ motion to music shows that they bob and weave in perfect sync to a beat, a new study shows. Scientists believe the bird’s mojo might be related to its talent for mimicry, which humans share. More»

New book chronicles the life and mind of Alex, the world's smartest parrot

(NEWSER) - In her new book Alex and Me researcher Irene Pepperberg explains how her work with the African gray parrot shed light on human intelligence, Scientific American reports. The author says Alex’s smarts demonstrate why scientists should examine how an animal’s brain works, not just how it looks, because the human cortex resembles a bird’s cortical-like matter in form and function. More»

Parrots are the latest pets to see spike in depression

(NEWSER) - With more pet owners working long days and leaving their furry and feathered friends alone at home, cases of animal depression are on the rise, writes the Daily Telegraph. A TV vet says the trend is hitting parrots especially hard, causing the talkative birds to pull out their feathers or peck at their own legs—until they're dosed with Prozac. More»

After someone steals beloved parrot, NYC owners put up bounty

(NEWSER) - He answers to Franklin, talks with a Brooklyn accent, and does a mean impersonation of a truck backing up. Find the missing parrot and it's worth $10,000 to his distraught Manhattan owners. They put up the bounty when their beloved African grey was stolen from a pet boarding shop last week, the New York Post reports. More»

Alex was no bird brain: He amused millions, aided science

(NEWSER) - Brandeis researchers feel as though they’ve lost a colleague: Alex, the African gray parrot they studied for 30 years, died Friday. He helped them reach surprising new conclusions about the avian brain and “was extraordinary in breaking the perceptions of birds as not being intelligent,” according to scientist Irene Pepperberg, who bought him in 1977. More»