Parrot with a well ordered approach

Parrot learns to order objects

source: Tim Radford
Guardian February 15 2002 p12

An African Grey parrot called Griffin has learnt to order objects, according to Massachussetts Institute of Technology researcher, Irene Pepperberg. He understands that some tasks have to be carried out in a particular order, and his behaviour can thus be called ‘rule governed’. Griffin has learnt to combine objects using particular orders. Only monkeys and apes were thought to be able to exhibit physical and vocal combinatorial behaviour, before this discovery, and Pepperberg argues that similar abilities many have gone unnoticed in other vertebrates. Social animals are seen as more likely to be able to reason, researchers argue, in order to deal with one another.
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