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Brilliant Bruce the Disabled Parrot Uses Pebbles to Clean Himself With Broken Beak—Something Never Before Observed


There has never been an insult to convey a greater misconception than the phrase ‘bird brain’, because our feathered friends routinely use their high levels of intelligence and soar to startling heights that demand admiration.

Take Bruce, for example, the 8-year-old Alpine parrot from New Zealand. Bruce is missing the top half of his beak and is considered disabled, but that doesn’t stop him from doing all the things a normal parrot does.

It has adapted to use its tongue in place of the missing upper beak to lift tools and, most notably, to grasp a pebble to clean dust and mites from its feathers, something never before seen in the species.

Alpine Kea are the only alpine parrots in the world, and they are known to have ‘bird brains’ in this new sense. They are very thoughtful and have even been shown to weigh the odds before making a decision.

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Bruce was found at Arthur’s Pass on the South Island in 2013 when he was a young man. Scientists at the South Island Wildlife Hospital assume it lost its beak during an encounter with a pest trap.

Now housed in the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, it was first observed using a stone instead of its beak for preening in 2019 – behavior so extraordinary that a group of scientists set out to observe it.

Animal Minds / University of Auckland

Them found that in 90% of the cases in which he grabbed a pebble, he used it to groom himself, which constitutes the use of tools on animals. In 95% of the cases where a stone was dropped, retrieved or replaced to continue grooming, seriously ruling out ‘joking behavior’ exhibited by crows.

Amalia Bastos was fortunate to observe this “great personality” for research, and spoke to the Guardian about experience.

“Because Bruce’s behavior is consistent and repeated, it is considered intentional and innovative,” said Bastos. “It’s Bruce’s unique tool use, and this is the first scientific observation of that.”

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“He takes a piece of carrot and pushes it against a piece of hard metal or a rock and uses it to scrape with his lower beak, which again is feeding behavior that we haven’t seen in the other birds.”

Green and red birds have been documented to use sticks to clean themselves before, but lacking the dexterity that the rest of their beak would have provided, Bruce had to cope.

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SEE it in action in the video below … (NOTE: Audio is music only, so feel free to mute).

FLY this trained parrot to your flock on social media …





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