Parrots

All 6 species of parrots on WAnimals

Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.

Conservation status

Where they live

Recorded in 38 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:

Where to see them

Did you know…?

• In laboratory studies it has shown it can link words to abstract concepts such as quantity, shape and colour.

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• Alex the grey parrot, studied for thirty years by the researcher Irene Pepperberg, handled more than a hundred words, counted up to six, understood the concepts of same and different and asked what colour things were: his last words to his keeper were a goodbye he had learned to say every night.

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• It has been shown to help others of its kind selflessly: in experiments, a grey parrot hands tokens to a companion who can exchange them for food even though it gains nothing itself, something not even chimpanzees do.

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• The colony at El Cóndor, on the coast of Río Negro, is the largest parrot colony in the world: more than 35,000 nests dug along twelve kilometres of sandstone cliff.

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• It digs its own tunnels with bill and feet, some of them more than three metres deep, and pairs return to the same burrow year after year, extending it gradually.

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• It makes seasonal altitudinal movements within the yungas: it moves up and down in elevation following the ripening of alder and pino del cerro seed, rather than migrating horizontally like other birds.

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Ecosystems