the Gray parrot, or Jaco, are very intelligent birds. Now they were the first birds that successfully coped with the unusual challenge. They turned out to be, unselfishly to help their neighbors.
with the recent work of Desiree Brax (Dsire Brucks) from the Munich Ludwig-Maximilian University and her colleague August von Bayern (Auguste von Bayern) has worked with several grey parrots. They gave each individual a pile of small tokens. First, they were taught to exchange tokens for food: birds passed them to researchers through a tiny hole in the transparent screen (as pictured).
the Grey parrot returns to the Explorer badge.Photo Anastasia Krasheninnikova.
a month Later, two birds were placed in a transparent box. From each other were separated by the transparent wall.
One of the parrots did not receive tokens, and the second still gave, but now he could not transfer them to the scientist: the hole in the wall between him and the Explorer was no more. But it was in the wall between a scientist and a parrot who has not received the tokens. Interestingly, in the wall between the two birds also had a hole.
the Grey parrots live in large flocks of up to 1200 birds.Photo Anastasia Krasheninnikova.
Seven of the eight Jacko passed on treasured items to his friend so that he could exchange them for food. The “obmanshik” rarely shared a meal with a generous fellow.
When the role of birds were varied, individuals willingly passed on their badges to former assistants. Scientists assume that grey parrots have some understanding of reciprocity.
Birds give more tokens to those individuals with whom they have previously spent a lot of time. However, they also shared their tokens with those whom they knew little.
Jaco send each other a token.Photo Anastasia Krasheninnikova.
thus, when the experiment involved only one parrot, he didn’t throw a badge in the hole. If both holes leading to the researcher were closed, and none of the birds could not transfer tokens to and receive their food first Jacko much less likely to transmit the tokens second.
According to Brach, in addition to people only bonobos and orangutans have successfully coped with this test. But the chimps and gorillas did not pass the test of altruism.
According to the researcher, this test requires the test of both intellect and willingness to help. “They need to understand that the other bird needs help,” notes Brach.
the Researcher also worked with bird species Primolius couloni, but they failed the test: they did not help their brethren.
In 2015, another research group worked with crows and found that those also do not have the strength to finish this test.
today, scientists don’t know why Jacko help their relatives and why other birds did not differ in the same altruism. Perhaps future research will help to answer these questions.
Scientific article on the results of the study published in Current Biology.
By the way, earlier in the test logic the parrot walked five-year-olds. In addition, “Vesti.Science” (nauka.vesti.ru) told me that crows solve some tasks at the level of seven children communicate with gestures and is able to think about their actions a few steps forward.
Text: To.Science
