Babbling discovered in wild baby parrots

Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.

A team of researchers from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, working with colleagues in Venezuela, have found evidence of babbling in wild baby parrots. The group described the unique vocalizations of the baby birds, similar to human infants, and what they learned about the role of stress hormones in the development of their communication skills.

Humans have known for thousands of years that parrots have extraordinary vocal abilities and can mimic humans. The babbling of baby parrots has been completely ignored. According to the researchers, they live inside holes in trees where no one can hear them.

Almost by mistake, the researchers discovered the babbling. They were working with parrots at the Masaguaral Biological Station in Venezuela. There have been thousands of green-rumped parrots studied there. Researchers added audio and video recording devices to the tiny birds' nest as part of the effort.

The researchers found that the baby parrots babbled a lot when alone or when their siblings were asleep. A lot of the noises they made were random, while some noises were copied from their parents. When they were 21 days old, the babbling started.

They fed a small group of baby parrots a small amount of corticosterone and compared their babbling with others their age to see if stress hormones in humans accelerate the development of communication skills. The cohort began to babble more than usual. According to their findings, stress hormones have an impact on the parts of the brain associated with learning to communicate.

More information: Rory Eggleston et al, Vocal babbling in a wild parrot shows life history and endocrine affinities with human infants, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0592 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

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