Scientists say parrots help others without expecting anything in return

New experiment has shown that parrots help each other without expecting a return of similar behaviour. The study which was conducted on African grey parrot and blue-headed macaws was published in Current Biology. 

Parrots gave tokens deliberately

For the research, the team of scientists designed a test of altruism and gave it two different species of birds, eight African grey parrots and six blue-headed macaws. The birds were earlier trained to exchange metal tokens for treats. Each bird was tested with a bird, with whom they had a close bond and another bird with whom they shared no such relation. For the purpose of the study, only one of the two birds were given tokens which they could exchange for a walnut. Researchers observed that only parrots and not macaws deliberately gave tokens to their fellows.

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Zoologist Auguste von Bayern of Oxford University said that remarkably, the African grey parrots were intrinsically motivated to help others, even if the other individual was not their friend, so they behaved very prosocially. The study also found that they passed tokens to fellow birds regardless of the bond, they gave more tokens to the birds with who they shared closed birds. Behavioural biologist Désirée Brucks of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology said that they found that African Grey Parrots voluntarily and spontaneously help familiar parrots to achieve a goal without obvious immediate benefit to themselves.    

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In a separate recent study, the researchers showed that, when an African grey parrot sees a friend getting a better treat, they didn't seem particularly bothered. This is in contrast to animals such as chimpanzees, who tend to get excited in a negative way. Earlier research has proved the African grey parrots are smarter than a human child. 

This is a rare discovery of human behaviour in the bird kingdom. The corvids, which also include ravens and crows have been known for showing clever behaviour. They have been known to show some behaviour which was only observed in primates.  However, researchers observed that the corvids failed in the test of altruism. Cockatoos are also known to make their own tools and have even demonstrated some creativity.