Bruce the kea, an olive green parrot, has a missing upper beak, giving him a perpetually surprised look. Despite this defect, Bruce has managed to astonish scientists with his ingenuity.
Unable to forage on his own and facing the challenge of keeping his feathers clean, Bruce seemed to have found a solution. When comparative psychologist Amalia Bastos and her colleagues arrived at the reserve to study keas, they were surprised to learn that Bruce had figured out how to use small stones to preen.
During their observation, the team noticed that Bruce had indeed invented his own method of preening, as reported in a 2021 study in Scientific Reports by the researchers from Johns Hopkins University.
2024-01-26 10:26:33
Read more on www.sciencenews.org